Cubs trade Heilman

[Tim]

CHICAGO – The Chicago Cubs today acquired left-handed pitcher Scott Maine and first baseman Ryne White from the Arizona Diamondbacks for right-handed pitcher Aaron Heilman. White is a native of Chicago and is a 2005 graduate of St. Rita of Cascia High School.

 

Maine, 24, combined to go 4-5 with seven saves and a 2.90 ERA (20 ER/62.0 IP) in 48 relief appearances between Double-A Mobile and Triple-A Reno in 2009, reaching Triple-A in only his third professional season. The southpaw struck out 61 batters and issued 22 walks in 62.0 innings pitched between the stops, an average of nearly one strikeout per inning and 3.2 walks per nine innings. He allowed only two home runs in 62.0 innings pitched. Maine last month also made a pair of appearances for the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona Fall League, allowing three runs in 1.2 innings.

 

Drafted by the Diamondbacks in the sixth round of the 2007 Draft, Maine is 8-7 with 13 saves and a 3.29 ERA (44 ER/120.1 IP) in 88 relief appearances covering three professional seasons. The six-foot-three, 195-pounder pitched for three seasons at the University of Miami before joining the Diamondbacks organization.

 

White, 23, batted .266 (111-for-418) with 18 doubles, six home runs, 52 RBI, 65 walks and a .371 on-base percentage in 116 games for Single-A Visalia last season. He was especially strong against right-handed pitching, batting .298 (78-for-262) with a .405 on-base percentage compared to a .212 (33-for-156) mark and a .313 on-base percentage vs. left-handed pitching. He is a career .275 hitter (194-for-705) with 13 home runs, 103 RBI and a .366 on-base percentage in 186 professional games the last two seasons.

 

After graduating from St. Rita of Cascia, White attended Purdue University and was a 2007 Big Ten Conference All-Star after batting .452 (90-for-199) with a .521 on-base percentage in 53 games for the Boilermakers. The five-foot-11, 205-pounder was selected by the Diamondbacks in the fourth round of the 2008 Draft.

 

Heilman, 31, went 4-4 with one save and a 4.11 ERA (33 ER/72.1 IP) in 70 relief appearances for the Cubs last season. He was acquired from Seattle for left-handed pitcher Garrett Olson and infielder Ronny Cedeno January 28, 2009. The righthander is 26-37 with 10 saves and a 4.22 ERA (245 ER/522.2 IP) in 375 major league appearances (25 starts) with the New York Mets (2003-08) and Cubs (2009).

[Guest]

That's an official press release from the Cubs, btw.

[Schwarber Fan]

:good:

[jersey cubs fan]

Hurray for no more Heilman.

[cubsfan26]

Sounds like a pretty good trade. I figured they would either keep Heilman or trade him for some prospects. Yeah I know everybody thinks Heilman sucks, and he did the last two years. But this guy had too much value around the league to just nontender. Because his stuff is still very good despite not getting very good results. I guess the Cubs will use the Heilman money to add another veteran reliever on a one year deal. Because I doubt they go with just Marmol, Grabow, Guzman and a bunch of young guys next year. When you consider how questionable Guzman health is.

[Cubswin11]

:clapping:

[jersey cubs fan]

I guess the Cubs will use the Heilman money to add another veteran reliever on a one year deal. Because I doubt they go with just Marmol, Grabow, Guzman and a bunch of young guys next year. When you consider how questionable Guzman health is.

 

They probably will because that is the stupid thing to do.

 

I hate veteran relievers. Worst case of proven veteranness out there.

[SouthSideRyan]

I can't believe somebody gave something up for him. I get the feeling teams are going to be kicking themselves when they see some of the names out there after the non-tender deadline.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Maine has real solid numbers, wonder what his stuff is like. And White has a sub .100 ISO as a first baseman, I didn't think we had a shortage of 1B around Daytona.

 

Trades like this are why signing Grabow to his contract was a dumb idea. Maine joins Marshall, Gorzelanny, Gaub, and Russell in the "probably just as good as Grabow, but definitely not 3.5 million worse than him" club.

[Guest]

Heilman was pretty good in the second half.

[Guest]

Maine has real solid numbers, wonder what his stuff is like. And White has a sub .100 ISO as a first baseman, I didn't think we had a shortage of 1B around Daytona.

 

Trades like this are why signing Grabow to his contract was a dumb idea. Maine joins Marshall, Gorzelanny, Gaub, and Russell in the "probably just as good as Grabow, but definitely not 3.5 million worse than him" club.

yep. Couldn't agree more.

[Rob]

BA has Ryne White ranked as the #18 prospect in the DBacks system prior to the 2009 season. BA says he is a strong all-around hitter with power to all fields and excellent defensive footwork, likening him to a Sean Casey with more power as an optimistic comp.

 

Maine did not appear.

[cubsfan26]

Trades like this are why signing Grabow to his contract was a dumb idea. Maine joins Marshall, Gorzelanny, Gaub, and Russell in the "probably just as good as Grabow, but definitely not 3.5 million worse than him" club

 

We could hope but things aren't quite that easy most of the time. Thats why relievers keep getting paid after they have performed well. If a bunch of young guys who haven't had success were always just as good then relievers wouldn't still be getting decent size contracts.

 

I hate veteran relievers. Worst case of proven veteranness out there.

 

I think you mean thats what almost all teams do. You can't trust unproven guys for your whole bullpen, and need to have some guys with a good/decent track record. If any Triple A guy could give you a John Grabow era then he wouldn't be getting that money. I expect whatever reliever they bring in be on a one year deal for 1-2m though.

[Guest]

Trades like this are why signing Grabow to his contract was a dumb idea. Maine joins Marshall, Gorzelanny, Gaub, and Russell in the "probably just as good as Grabow, but definitely not 3.5 million worse than him" club

 

We could hope but things aren't quite that easy most of the time. Thats why relievers keep getting paid after they have performed well. If a bunch of young guys who haven't had success were always just as good then relievers wouldn't still be getting decent size contracts.

 

I hate veteran relievers. Worst case of proven veteranness out there.

 

I think you mean thats what almost all teams do. You can't trust unproven guys going into the season year after year. If any Triple A guy could give you a John Grabow era then he wouldn't be getting that money. I expect whatever reliever they bring in be on a one year deal for 1-2m though.

mediocre relievers continue to get oversized contracts because the majority of major league GM's do not properly understand risk management, statistical evaluation, optimal resource allocation and a number of other topics.

[Little Slide Rooter]

Ill file this one under meh.

[cubsfan26]

mediocre relievers continue to get oversized contracts because the majority of major league GM's do not properly understand risk management, statistical evaluation, optimal resource allocation and a number of other topics.

 

Thats the reason that us on a message board wanna think. But I personally don't believe MLB GM's don't understand what us common fans can. These GM's are getting even more sources of info that we don't see and gotta deal with the pressure of having success right now. Obviously if you aren't expected to win or improve you can sit back and hope that you can find a guy out of nowhere to be successful. But when you need to have success and improve next season you need to go with players who had success in that role. For example if say Hendry decided to let Grabow and Heilman go and went with just young guys and the bullpen sucked he would be blamed. Especially if those veterans had success with the new teams they went to. So it's easy to sit back and make judgements on decisions they make, but you really don't know the situation until you are in there shoes. I think teams fully understand that relievers are risky and it's not a great idea to give them more then one year deals. But almost every team needs relief pitching really baqd and if a guy has success they wanna bring that success to there team. Which ends up driving up the price for some relievers.

[Outshined_One]

I'm happy to have Heilman off the team; anything extra we get out of it is a bonus.

[Guest]

mediocre relievers continue to get oversized contracts because the majority of major league GM's do not properly understand risk management, statistical evaluation, optimal resource allocation and a number of other topics.

 

Thats the reason that us on a message board wanna think. But I personally don't believe MLB GM's don't understand what us common fans can. These GM's are getting even more sources of info that we don't see and gotta deal with the pressure of having success right now. Obviously if you aren't expected to win or improve you can sit back and hope that you can find a guy out of nowhere to be successful. But when you need to have success and improve next season you need to go with players who had success in that role. For example if say Hendry decided to let Grabow and Heilman go and went with just young guys and the bullpen sucked he would be blamed. Especially if those veterans had success with the new teams they went to. So it's easy to sit back and make judgements on decisions they make, but you really don't know the situation until you are in there shoes.

everything that you laid out in your argument is the proper use of:

 

- risk management

- statistical (and scouting) evaluation

- optimal resource allocation

 

If you don't have options such as Marshall, Gorzo, Gaub, et al in house, then sure, allocate the resources. But we have guys that have shown what they can do at the major league level and we've got guys who have dominated at AAA and are ready to step into lesser roles. Meanwhile, we allocate precious resources to a mediocre reliever who has lived on the edge for two straight years.

 

It is poor decision making.

[fromthestretch]

You can't trust unproven guys for your whole bullpen.

 

No one said you should. However, letting Grabow walk wasn't going to leave the Cubs with a bullpen totally reliant on rookies. It's not like the Cubs were completely devoid of left-handed options for the bullpen. They were in a situation where they could wait and see how the market played out.

[cubsfan26]

If you don't have options such as Marshall, Gorzo, Gaub, et al in house, then sure, allocate the resources. But we have guys that have shown what they can do at the major league level and we've got guys who have dominated at AAA and are ready to step into lesser roles. Meanwhile, we allocate precious resources to a mediocre reliever who has lived on the edge for two straight years.

 

Yeah but guys like Marshall and Gorzelanny might be needed as starters alot of this season. While guys like Stevens, Gaub and others might have pitched well in Triple A. It's still Triple A and plenty of relievers do well there and suck in the major leagues. If your a major league GM you need to add someone with a track record if you wanna improve your team. If the other guys work out thats great, but you still need to have something to count on. Grabow is overpaid but I have no problem bringing him back on a two year deal. Either will Cubs anybody else if he gets results like he did the last two seasons. Point is teams gotta take risks with relievers and won't stop needing to. Bullpens are just too important to teams these days, too count on young guys. GM's take the risk of going with young or cheap guys all the time and it fails, this is why they take risk with veteran relievers to improve right now. Because they are more likely to improve your team the next season then the young guys do. Also keep in mind a GM needs his team to improve right now, or he might not have a job by the end of the relievers contract. So thats why he has to add the player to improve the team right away.

 

No one said you should. However, letting Grabow walk wasn't going to leave the Cubs with a bullpen totally reliant on rookies.

 

It kinda would though, especially if your going to trade Heilman. You basically got Marmol, and then Guzman but he can't really be counted on. So if you don't bring back Grabow, and say Guzman gets hurt like he has alot in his career. Then we would be left trusting guys like Gaub, Caridad, Stevens, Patton and whoever else in important spots. Especially since there's a decent chance that Marshall and Gorzelanny might be needed in the rotation. I agree that the Cubs should have waited it out more and shouldn't have paid him 7.5m. But there was no way they were gonna get Grabow or any good full inning reliever on a one year deal(unless it's for more then 4m). If the Cubs signed Grabow to something like 2y at 6m or so I would have been totally fine with it. So I don't like that the Cubs overpaid but I don't totally hate resigning him like most on here do. When it came to trading for Grabow people said it was bad to because he was lucky,and he ended up pitching very well for us.

[Guest]

You can't trust unproven guys for your whole bullpen.

 

No one said you should. However, letting Grabow walk wasn't going to leave the Cubs with a bullpen totally reliant on rookies. It's not like the Cubs were completely devoid of left-handed options for the bullpen. They were in a situation where they could wait and see how the market played out.

 

Exactly. Name one non closing reliever that is consistently good year after year after year. I'd fully expect Heilman to have a bounce back year this coming year, and he'll be one of those guys that will end up being better than the guy the Cubs just gave a 2 year deal to.

 

Scott Eyre got horrible and Hendry couldn't wait to send him packing. He's been pretty solid since. He might fall off a cliff tomorrow, but most relievers are just biding their time before poor production yanks the market right out from under them.

 

Hendry sent Wuertz packing. I don't think any team would kick Wuertz' 2009 season to the curb.

 

Thing is, it's all about spinning an imaginary wheel on who will actually be half way decent for a year or a year and a half. What percentage of relievers that were relievers on teams 5 years ago are still relievers on teams today? The ratio is probably not very good.

 

Because you don't know who is going to be good from one year to the next, it's really not a good idea to throw big money at a guy. As far as Hendry's thought process, I'm clueless how he determines someone will be good and is worth throwing money at. But then again, he did throw money at Kevin Gregg last year and even I, a person who has never managed a big league ball club in my entire life, knew better than to do that.

 

But then again, Hendry also threw money at Aaron Miles. Maybe Hendry plays the banana name game with guys and if he likes the way the song works out with a guys name, he signs them up. It has to be something stupid like that.

 

As far as Heilman is concerned, I'm fine with not tendering or trading him. He would have cost too much and he would be just as big a gamble as Grabow will be.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

There's still an entire offseason. They could sign Rafael Soriano, or Mike Gonzalez, or Crazy Eyes Valverde, or Billy Wagner, or a lesser guy like Shouse or trade for Juan Cruz(who's making less than Grabow and is about a jillion times more likely to be good), or find a Wuertz-esque guy in trade like Jesse Crain, or.. you get the point. Not signing Grabow, a mediocre reliever, to a long term deal does not = we want to fill our pen with 7 guys who have a combined -10 relief appearances at the Major League level.

[cubsfan26]

They could sign Rafael Soriano, or Mike Gonzalez, or Crazy Eyes Valverde, or Billy Wagner

 

Those guys will be getting much bigger contracts then Grabow got.

 

or a lesser guy like Shouse or trade for Juan Cruz

 

Shouse is a LH specialist not a full inning reliever like Grabow, and we already been there and done that with Cruz. I don't think taking him after a crap year is a good idea. The thing with Grabow is were not only getting a LH were also getting our set up guy to pitch the 7th and 8th inning . So if you bring in a guy like say Shouse then you still need to bring in someone to pitch in the 7th or 8th. I never said they shouldn't have waited. But there's no doubt in mind that they would had to pay a reliever a simliar contract or more then Grabow got. Especially if guys like Marshall and Gorzelanny are needed in the rotation or used as trade chips to add a outfielder or 2b.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

They could sign Rafael Soriano, or Mike Gonzalez, or Crazy Eyes Valverde, or Billy Wagner

 

Those guys will be getting much bigger contracts then Grabow got.

 

They are all Type A FA's, which is going to depress their value. They also stand a fighting chance of being worth their contract, even if it's higher than Grabow's. Pay for quality, not mediocrity.

 

or a lesser guy like Shouse or trade for Juan Cruz

 

Shouse is a LH specialist not a full inning reliever like Grabow, and we already been there and done that with Cruz. I don't think taking him after a crap year is a good idea. The is with Grabow were not only getting a LH were also getting our set up guy. So if you bring in a guy like say Shouse then you still need to bring in someone to pitch in the 7th or 8th. I never said they shouldn't have waited. But there's no doubt in mind that they would had to pay a reliever a simliar contract or more then Grabow got.

 

We already have Marmol and Guzman on board on the back end, and for the money were capable of adding a much better reliever than Grabow. He's a completely fungible reliever. It's not difficult to put up a 1.4 whip to go with 7+ K/9 and 4+ BB/9. That's the point, Grabow has no track record. He's consistently mediocre. If you want to pay for security, fine, pay Soriano to be lights out at the back end. But don't pay Grabow just because you're afraid that somehow every single one of Gaub, Stevens, Parker, Caridad, Atkins, Gorzelanny, Marshall, Samardzija, Patton, and even Maine, Cashner, Jackson, and Coleman will not be able to be merely below average coming out of the pen.

[Shilzzz]

I'm not sure that Billy Wagner's contract will be that much more than Grabow. But his numbers will be.