Buster Onley: Santana will be traded during Spring Training

[pitchcs]

I would trade the prospects for Johan but in no way would I give him $120M without ever seeing him pitch @ Wrigley. There's just something about that that scares me.

[mdwilla]

PIE/Marmol/Marshall/ Hill and Santana is a Cub. Sign Lofton for CF.

 

Gallagher/Murton//Cedeno for Roberts.

[Derwood]

PIE/Marmol/Marshall/ Hill and Santana is a Cub. Sign Lofton for CF.

 

Gallagher/Murton//Cedeno for Greene.

 

FTFY

[Post Count Padder]

Charley Walters of the St. Paul Pioneer Press expects a Johan Santana deal to get done within the next 10 days.

 

Walters doesn't list the Mets, Red Sox or Yankees as favorites, though he does say the Twins again tried and failed to get the Angels involved. ESPN's Buster Olney has sources telling him that Jon Lester is now off the table, suggesting Boston's current offer could be built around Jacoby Ellsbury. There's been little lately to indicate the Mets or Yankees have adjusted their offers.

Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press

[Sweet Swinging Billy]

Whether we get Santana or not, I think Hendry at least has to try to make a deal for him. Bedard has a lot of potential but talent wise, he's not half as dominating as Santana. If the Twins don't bite, then I say go after Bedard. The Cubs goal should be to win now, not 2009 or 2010.

[Sweet Swinging Billy]

Let me re-phrase what I posted earlier If you don't land Santana, then you have do whatever it takes, to land Bedard in a trade. I'm sick and tired of the Cubs allowing other teams steal their thunder.

[Outshined_One]

I'd love to see the Cubs trade for Santana, but the proposed years and numbers for his extension that have been thrown around severely tempers that enthusiasm.

 

It'd be nice to have some flexibility in FA over the next few years. Santana could really hamper the Cubs in that regard.

[Derwood]

I'd love to see the Cubs trade for Santana, but the proposed years and numbers for his extension that have been thrown around severely tempers that enthusiasm.

 

It'd be nice to have some flexibility in FA over the next few years. Santana could really hamper the Cubs in that regard.

 

only if he declines. i wouldn't mind being hampered by the best pitcher in baseball

[frostwyrm]

I don't see how a team that has an ownership change pending and enormous salary commitments already on the books could possibly hand out a 7/150 contract.

[Derwood]

I don't see how a team that has an ownership change pending and enormous salary commitments already on the books could possibly hand out a 7/150 contract.

 

they can afford it?

[Mephistopheles]

After adjusting for league (both league difficulty factor and pitchers faced in the National League), defense and park factors. I am getting a difference of about +9 runs for Jake Peavy. I haven't put them on the Cubbies yet, but given Jake's tendency to get the ball on the ground a bit higher rate than Santana, and one of the things Peavy is hurt by more (walks) is actually helped for pitchers at Wrigley, we're probably talking about Peavy squeezing out 3 runs or so there putting him down by about 6 runs. He's a very good hitting pitcher, and while Santana has done quite well in his 30 ABs there's a pretty damn good chance that the six run lead evaporates with the bats, ever so slightly going into Peavy's favor.

 

How'd I do this. Basically I derived factors for Peavy and Santana using their home parks. Petco Park shows no statistically significant park effect on Jake Peavy. I did however, use a method of scaling park factors for a regression to the mean kind of way. I completely took out pitchers ABs and did some adjustment for league in a similar manner, although using pitchers converting leagues of course. I used the last three seasons of data weighted 11, 8, 5. We would expect Peavy's opponents to hit about .234/.297/.383 in MLB average settings and Johan's to hit about .221/.266/.380. So really the only differences are about .013 BA, .018 BB/PA, and -.010 IsP. Over the course of a full season that comes out to approximately 14 singles, 10 walks, and 8 singles becoming doubles (helping peavy). There's also a slight expected increase in double plays added for Peavy. This is because the main difference in BA (okay the only difference in BA) is the difference of .013 in BABIP (.283 Peavy, .270 Santana). That BABIP may be a little low on Santana, given Wrigley's tendencies however. Either way the higher BABIP is a direct result of groundballs being more prevalent for Peavy. Wrigley's only going to increase GB outs for Peavy. Either way in a nuetral setting there's 2 or 3 more GIDPs that Peavy gets (that's 2 or 3 extra outs). Jake Peavy is also a better defender by Santana, going by PMR we're talking about a difference of about 3 singles that Peavy would have snagged and converted into outs. Finally summing all of this up and converting them to runs of course, we get Santana being +8.7 runs over a full season without adjusting for Peavy being a better fit for the Cubs and Peavy being a likely better hitter by a half a dozen runs. Either way it's either a slight favor to Peavy or a tie. It's hard to make a great case for Santana being a better fit for the Cubs than Peavy.

 

Santana's also at greater risk for an injury if coming to the Cubs. His pitch count has always hovered near 100 - rarely going over 110. This may sound like he does not have a lot of wear and tear on his arm, but the 220+ seasons he has really means more than the PC (screw you BP). Peavy's really not that much a risk for wear and tear. He throws about 105, going 110 every now and then. Keep in mind that pitchers tend to increase their PC coming to the NL (i know it's backwards). They also tend to increase their walk rates (which I actually did NOT take into account oh there's more reason to like Peavy).

 

Not only all of this, but there's another adjustment to be made: Handedness. With the notable exceptions of Prince Fielder and Adam Dunn (for now) most of the best hitters in the National League Central are right handed (and relatively speaking there's a higher RH percentage in this division than in others and one of the biggest park effects in baseball is Enron's RH HR factor, helping Peavy there). Now, Santana gets righties and lefties out at the same rate but Peavy is nails against right handed hitters. So there's that other factor I did not include in this analysis. All of this probably pushes to Peavy being around +5-10 for the Cubs. Other clubs value Santana more than Peavy (and rightfully so), so Peavy's production is a bigger bang for less money.

 

There's certainly no question that the given a choice between Peavy and Santana, the Cubs gotta go with Peavy.

[frostwyrm]

I don't see how a team that has an ownership change pending and enormous salary commitments already on the books could possibly hand out a 7/150 contract.

 

they can afford it?

 

If you know the name of the new owner please share it with the rest of us.

[rawaction]

Meph, that's the most BS argument I've ever seen you post. First off, who said anything about being a better fit for the Cubs? Nobody argued that because Peavy's not available. Secondly, your reasoning really shows nothing except that you can take 2 hours to reach for stuff to help your argument.

 

Did you take into that Wrigley will also increase GB outs for Santana, who pitches on one of the fastest surfaces in the league? And Santana's more of an injury risk? Why, because you say so? 101 pitches per game last 4 years, and 33 starts in each year. Peavy started that many for the first time in 07, and he averages 105 pitches per game. Even if Santana's PC climbs going to the NL, Peavy is the bigger risk, because he's shown he isn't the most durable and doesn't have the greatest mechanics.

[Derwood]

I don't see how a team that has an ownership change pending and enormous salary commitments already on the books could possibly hand out a 7/150 contract.

 

they can afford it?

 

If you know the name of the new owner please share it with the rest of us.

 

i'm saying that the Cubs as a business creates enough $$$ to afford it.

[frostwyrm]

I don't see how a team that has an ownership change pending and enormous salary commitments already on the books could possibly hand out a 7/150 contract.

 

they can afford it?

 

If you know the name of the new owner please share it with the rest of us.

 

i'm saying that the Cubs as a business creates enough $$$ to afford it.

 

We know nothing about the new owner's desired time horizon to recoup his investment. If an owner blows $800 million on a sports team he might not want to wait 20 years just to make his $800 million back. All these huge salary commitments have the effect of directly increasing the time it will take to break even on the investment. Of course an alternative would be to dump payroll or even blow up the team and rebuild with a good GM who can create a competitive team without a giant payroll. If I bought the Cubs I'd probably do that, since I think the Cubs roster is really pretty lousy on a bang-for-the-buck basis, and it's only going to get worse in the next few years.

Edited January 28, 2008 by frostwyrm

[Mephistopheles]

First off, who said anything about being a better fit for the Cubs? Nobody argued that because Peavy's not available. Secondly, your reasoning really shows nothing except that you can take 2 hours to reach for stuff to help your argument.

 

1. It's the context duh. Obviously when I said I'd take Peavy over Santana straight up, I meant for the Cubs since we're talking about trading for Santana. It should be fairly obvious that we're running under that assumption.

2. Who said I spent the entire time doing that? I didn't lol. Jesus.

 

Did you take into that Wrigley will also increase GB outs for Santana, who pitches on one of the fastest surfaces in the league?

 

Yes, except it's really not a factor these days. The surface is not as bad as it was ten years ago and of course he's got less GBs to begin with. It's a minimal factor. 2, 3 runs tops.

[CubColtPacer]

I don't see how a team that has an ownership change pending and enormous salary commitments already on the books could possibly hand out a 7/150 contract.

 

they can afford it?

 

If you know the name of the new owner please share it with the rest of us.

 

i'm saying that the Cubs as a business creates enough $$$ to afford it.

 

We know nothing about the new owner's desired time horizon to recoup his investment. If an owner blows $800 million on a sports team he might not want to wait 20 years just to make his $800 million back. All these huge salary commitments have the effect of directly increasing the time it will take to break even on the investment. Of course an alternative would be to dump payroll or even blow up the team and rebuild with a good GM who can create a competitive team without a giant payroll. If I bought the Cubs I'd probably do that, since I think the Cubs roster is really pretty lousy on a bang-for-the-basis, and it's only going to get worse in the next few years.

 

If the owner is truly looking it as a business and more about recouping his investment then winning baseball games, there's now way he would ever blow up the current team and rebuild. Are they the most efficient team? Absolutely not, not even close. They are marketing gold though. The PR loss in Chicago by trading the current star players in Chicago would be absolutely immense. Even if the team started winning 95-100 games a year in 5 years, it wouldn't make up for the economic losses they'd suffer in between. The Cubs are selling out, have good merchandise sales, and a good television deal. No owner who just looks at it as a business would ever attempt a total rebuild and potentially mess with that.

 

I do agree with you though that the Cubs going up to 140 million in payroll right now would not be the best for the new owner. New owners don't want to see it go up that high because then they are expected to have to keep it that high.

[frostwyrm]

I don't see how a team that has an ownership change pending and enormous salary commitments already on the books could possibly hand out a 7/150 contract.

 

they can afford it?

 

If you know the name of the new owner please share it with the rest of us.

 

i'm saying that the Cubs as a business creates enough $$$ to afford it.

 

We know nothing about the new owner's desired time horizon to recoup his investment. If an owner blows $800 million on a sports team he might not want to wait 20 years just to make his $800 million back. All these huge salary commitments have the effect of directly increasing the time it will take to break even on the investment. Of course an alternative would be to dump payroll or even blow up the team and rebuild with a good GM who can create a competitive team without a giant payroll. If I bought the Cubs I'd probably do that, since I think the Cubs roster is really pretty lousy on a bang-for-the-basis, and it's only going to get worse in the next few years.

 

If the owner is truly looking it as a business and more about recouping his investment then winning baseball games, there's now way he would ever blow up the current team and rebuild. Are they the most efficient team? Absolutely not, not even close. They are marketing gold though. The PR loss in Chicago by trading the current star players in Chicago would be absolutely immense. Even if the team started winning 95-100 games a year in 5 years, it wouldn't make up for the economic losses they'd suffer in between. The Cubs are selling out, have good merchandise sales, and a good television deal. No owner who just looks at it as a business would ever attempt a total rebuild and potentially mess with that.

 

I do agree with you though that the Cubs going up to 140 million in payroll right now would not be the best for the new owner. New owners don't want to see it go up that high because then they are expected to have to keep it that high.

 

The Cubs could rebuild and still make money while doing it. The 2006 Cubs were absolutely horrible and expensive, but they didn't lose money. I'm sure most fans would sooner pay to watch a developing team win 66 games than watch that putrid overpaid 2006 team win 66 games.

[imb]

I don't think you know anything though, so of course you got me. Similar means equal? I obviously meant the money was better use elsewhere. Of course had I known DeRosa would hit .280/.370/.430 or w/e he hit do you think I would have thought that? The point is that there was little reason to believe that his 06 was anything more than an outlier. Now that he's done it twice, there's a lot more reason to believe it's something he can do. At the time he looked like a .280/.330/.400 player, at best (give or take). Theriot is and still looks like a .280/.340/.360 player. Similar wasn't that bad of a word to use there.

Oh, ok. "When he does it a few times, I'll be able to predict he'll keep doing it." Clever. Very maverick. Thinking outside of the box, I like it.

 

The real question here is how the hell do you even know that? People read my blog? YOU SECRETLY LOVE ME I TAKE EVERYTHING BACK AND WILL HAVE SEX WITH YOU.

Yeah, I know how weird is that, that I would read a Cubs blog? That would be like going on a message board to read opinions from other fans of the same team. Kinda creepy, I know. But seriously, you were pimping it in your power rankings thread.

 

dag nabbit Jim, you really did not listen to me. It was not a very good signing. The Cubs could have spent just as much money as they did for Soriano and Mark DeRosa and signed Julio Lugo and Ray Durham. They would have gotten about twice as much of an increase in runs that way. But oh well.

Eeeek.

 

How do you feel about Rich Hill? He's a beast imo.

[CubColtPacer]

I don't see how a team that has an ownership change pending and enormous salary commitments already on the books could possibly hand out a 7/150 contract.

 

they can afford it?

 

If you know the name of the new owner please share it with the rest of us.

 

i'm saying that the Cubs as a business creates enough $$$ to afford it.

 

We know nothing about the new owner's desired time horizon to recoup his investment. If an owner blows $800 million on a sports team he might not want to wait 20 years just to make his $800 million back. All these huge salary commitments have the effect of directly increasing the time it will take to break even on the investment. Of course an alternative would be to dump payroll or even blow up the team and rebuild with a good GM who can create a competitive team without a giant payroll. If I bought the Cubs I'd probably do that, since I think the Cubs roster is really pretty lousy on a bang-for-the-basis, and it's only going to get worse in the next few years.

 

If the owner is truly looking it as a business and more about recouping his investment then winning baseball games, there's now way he would ever blow up the current team and rebuild. Are they the most efficient team? Absolutely not, not even close. They are marketing gold though. The PR loss in Chicago by trading the current star players in Chicago would be absolutely immense. Even if the team started winning 95-100 games a year in 5 years, it wouldn't make up for the economic losses they'd suffer in between. The Cubs are selling out, have good merchandise sales, and a good television deal. No owner who just looks at it as a business would ever attempt a total rebuild and potentially mess with that.

 

I do agree with you though that the Cubs going up to 140 million in payroll right now would not be the best for the new owner. New owners don't want to see it go up that high because then they are expected to have to keep it that high.

 

The Cubs could rebuild and still make money while doing it. The 2006 Cubs were absolutely horrible and expensive, but they didn't lose money. I'm sure most fans would sooner pay to watch a developing team win 66 games than watch that putrid overpaid 2006 team win 66 games.

 

Attendance fell throughout the year in 2006 (and the reselling of tickets was a joke by August, you just have to look at the many threads on this board of people who couldn't give their tickets away), and TV ratings fell even faster. The only reason as many people even came as they did is that tickets were sold when many people thought the team still had a shot. It was really the end of the false hope from the 03 teams. If they hadn't made the moves they did in the winter of 06, they would have lost a lot of potential money during that season.

 

And I'm not saying the Cubs wouldn't make money. It seems fairly obvious that no matter what they do they'll make a profit. They make more money by having lots of marketable players and at least the appearances of the chance at the playoffs ever year rather then have 2-3 years where there is no chance at the playoffs and some great teams. It's been shown lately that a .500 Cubs team will sell out every game. A team that before the season was projected to win 70 games? It probably wouldn't. A team full of youngsters? Maybe more television ratings, but not nearly the same merchandise sales.

[badnews]

Pardon. I need an "Idiot's Guide To This Argument." Something about it seems counterintuitive. Petco seems to help all pitchers, regardless of whether it's immediately obvious in the statistics or not, especially with the relievers.

 

If Santana is worse than Peavy, than if he moved to SD/Petco, he should put up worse numbers than Peavy, and if Peavy moved to Minneapolis, he should put up better numbers than Santana. But does anyone think that would really happen?

 

Also, commenting on this will probably get some crap thrown my way, but oh well: Doesn't Jake Peavy strike anyone as a big game choker? Look, I'm not going to throw him off my staff for sure. But doesn't the best pitcher in baseball have to not be looking to become the worst postseason pitcher of his generation? 2005 - gutless performance. 2006 - gutless performance. 2007 - he coughs up 6 runs in 6 innings in the playoff tiebreaker? The best pitcher in baseball should be able to at least pitch respectably in the big games.

 

I'm not saying you have to be superman in the playoffs, or that Peavy is crap, or that I wouldn't pay Vlad Guerrero and Jake Peavy a lot of money to play for the Cubs. I'm not saying I buy one-off postseason heroes like Jeff Suppan and Derek Lowe. I'm saying maybe during the big games your ERA shouldn't increase by 1000%.

 

Speaking of which, what would Josh Beckett's numbers look like in Petco? Fenway really hurts him.

[17 Seconds]

PIE/Marmol/Marshall/ Hill and Santana is a Cub. Sign Lofton for CF.

 

Gallagher/Murton//Cedeno for Roberts.

 

I really don't even see the point in discussing Santana and the Cubs. Even if we did have what it takes to get him (which I highly doubt, even though some people seem to think every team is dazzled by quantity as opposed to quality when trading a big name player), we wouldn't be able to lock him up with the ownership transition. For one, there's lots of talk that Santana won't accept a trade unless he can agree to an extension with the team getting him first. Let's put that aisde for a second, just for argument's sake. You really want to gvie up Pie, Marshall, Mamol, and Hill for a one year rental? I don't think much of Marshall or Pie, but that would be an atrocious trade. The odds are that we still wouldn't win this year. Then he leaves (which you know he will, because we can't outbid the Yankees) and look at the team we're stuck with. A team that isn't competing for anything anytime soon. I think that's a terrible way to a run a team, and a great way to kill an organization for years.

[Sweet Swinging Billy]

ESPN's Rumor Central is reporting that the Mets are in the lead for acquiring Santana. OMG, not the Mets! If the Cubs can't get him, then I hope he stays in the American League.

[Tyrant]

Who is Buster Onley? Are there no other Busters?

 

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/9215/bustergw3.jpg

[St.Paul Cub]

First of all Charley Walters just makes stuff up. He's right about 1% of the time so he's going by someone else's story.

 

That said the Twins beatwriter said that it's likely to happen soon. They don't want the distraction at Spring Training if Santana is still on the team. This was very apparent at Twinsfest this weekend and this guy is very plugged in.

 

Sounds like it's going to be one of the New York teams. Hank Steinbrenner wants to do a deal, but his brother and Cashman are against it right now. If it's Hughes and Cabrerra the Twins would do it and even let them throw in Igewa who's not getting along with Ron Guidry. The Mets have offered 3 minor leaguers (whom I can't remember by name) and word is if they offer a 4th, the Twins would take it even though they'd ideally want proven players. The issue for the Mets is all 4 minor leaguers would deplete their farm system of any value.

 

For what it's worth, I'd like Santana, but would be somewhat reluctant due to the cost of the deal, the prospects we'd have to give, and the fact that this last year he just didn't look right. His fastball lost something and his other pitches weren't nearly as effective. That being said he was still a very good pitcher, but no where near the dominant pitcher of the previous years. That has me slightly worried.