Who do we trade and what do we expect in return?

[Guest]

I would tell the Red Sox that we'll take all those guys. Bradley, De La Rosa, Webster, Ranaudo, the whole lot, as a starting point at least. I would be such a terrible and vindictive GM.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

More than half that list is the status quo. Just because it's the most important doesn't mean it's necessarily not happening now.

 

1) Get two players who are a combined 0.5 WAR in half a season to put up 8 WAR next year

2) Have no injuries or ineffectiveness to three crucial starting pitchers

3) Find two undervalued starting pitchers in a brutal FA market for SP

4) Build an entire useful bullpen from near-scratch, with only James Russell as a holdover at the MLB level

5) Sign possibly the biggest FA of the offseason, certainly the best outfielder

6) Have several "young players" take steps forward in a system that looks pretty thin to me in MLB-ready-in-2014 talent.

 

I'm not gonna say that's impossible, but that's the fourth-best hope in the division, and a lot closer to fifth than third.

[Guest]

More than half that list is the status quo. Just because it's the most important doesn't mean it's necessarily not happening now.

 

1) Get two players who are a combined 0.5 WAR in half a season to put up 8 WAR next year

2) Have no injuries or ineffectiveness to three crucial starting pitchers

3) Find two undervalued starting pitchers in a brutal FA market for SP

4) Build an entire useful bullpen from near-scratch, with only James Russell as a holdover at the MLB level

5) Sign possibly the biggest FA of the offseason, certainly the best outfielder

6) Have several "young players" take steps forward in a system that looks pretty thin to me in MLB-ready-in-2014 talent.

 

I'm not gonna say that's impossible, but that's the fourth-best hope in the division, and a lot closer to fifth than third.

 

 

FWIW, Ellsbury is fourteen months younger and has been worth more fWAR than Choo this season (which is up their with Choo's best).

 

He does have a lot of value tied up in steals, though.

[SouthSideRyan]

In terms of ... ability? ... Hale would be okay for a Gregg trade. I'd hope for more/better, as I still have some doubts that Hale is a starter. Add in that he's 25 and turning 26, Gregg's excellent year, and factor in the way teams overpay for pen arms at the deadline, I don't think waiting is the worst thing.

 

To be quite honest, I'm really not sure what type of "expectation" to have on a Garza trade, in terms of the return. It's a lot of factors, plus and minus, running into each other. I think, speaking specifically on the Orioles right now, that it's hard to build a trade that really excites me, but then again, I'm not sure if I should be expecting an "excite me" trade on Garza. At the very least, I'd demand Eduardo Rodriguez as a center piece, but it wouldn't surprise me if the Orioles are going to balk at that as long as possible. I'm still not exactly on the Eduardo Rodriguez train, although I'll admit, he's a fascinating prospect. Problem is, I'm not sure what to slide in after that. I guess if we could get a Britton or Arrieta to work with, that'd be something, but I doubt the Orioles do that and I've never liked the raw potential of Arrieta enough. I guess something like Eduardo Rodriguez and either Zach Davies or maybe Branden Kline? as the key components of a package could be considered a solid enough return, but at the end of the day, nothing really jumps out at me.

 

Arrieta is going to be 5 years retired from the Long Island Ducks and you're still going to be talking about trading for him.

[Guest]

More than half that list is the status quo. Just because it's the most important doesn't mean it's necessarily not happening now.

 

1) Get two players who are a combined 0.5 WAR in half a season to put up 8 WAR next year

2) Have no injuries or ineffectiveness to three crucial starting pitchers

3) Find two undervalued starting pitchers in a brutal FA market for SP

4) Build an entire useful bullpen from near-scratch, with only James Russell as a holdover at the MLB level

5) Sign possibly the biggest FA of the offseason, certainly the best outfielder

6) Have several "young players" take steps forward in a system that looks pretty thin to me in MLB-ready-in-2014 talent.

 

I'm not gonna say that's impossible, but that's the fourth-best hope in the division, and a lot closer to fifth than third.

 

Oh, you're going back to the original post? In that case:

 

1 and 6 are the same thing. It is the most difficult item on the list, but considering the two players will be 24 next year and ZiPS thought they would reach that threshold this year, it's not exactly a 99th percentile idea.

 

2) None of those three have any history of injury problems. If you're going to try to characterize projecting 3 SP performing as expected without injury as wishcasting, you're arguing for the sake of arguing.

 

3) I'm supremely confident in the front office's ability to do so.

 

4) There's a reason I've been beating the drum to add bullpen arms in most/all deadline deals. They also have Marmol's money to play with if they want to actually be the winner for this year's Jason Grilli.

 

5) Choo is simply one avenue to a level of production. He could be Ellsbury, or a better SP than the Feldman/Maholm fare, a trade target, etc.

 

Are all of these things aligning probable to the point where we can forecast the team to the playoffs? No. They are feasible enough to not be a pie in the sky fantasy though. To relate back to the post I was originally replying to, if you can have a good offseason and a touch of good fortune to be a playoff team, then you shouldn't be writing off next season, and talking about 3 years down the road as being the time you can really expect to "compete".

[Hairyducked Idiot]

If the "young players" are just a repeat of Castro/Rizzo, then I'm not sure the team you are describing is even good enough to get into the playoffs. That's just this year's team + a decent bullpen + one bat - Garza.

 

Using the chart from this:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1658

 

I get 64% odds of three SP the same age as next year's Samardzija, Jackson and Wood, coming off healthy and productive seasons, all getting through the next season without any of them experiencing a 50% decline in IP. Better than even, but the chance of it not happening is significant enough to be noted. That's just the nature of pitching.

 

I don't like punting on any season, ever. But if we're basing our investment on where the team looks to stand in the success cycle, then I don't think 2014 looks any better now than 2013 did at this point last year, and maybe even a bit worse (have to replace Garza).

 

As far as supreme confidence that they'll be able to find undervalued SP whenever they want, I think that's optimistic. They've done it twice, with some misses along the way. That's no guarantee that they'll be able to do it in perpetuity in every market. Market inefficiencies close quickly and every year's FA crop is different. It reminds me of how after the Rizzo trade, people wanted to start penciling in one or two "prospect for prospect where we get an awesome core piece" deals a year.

[SouthSideRyan]

Kyle, aren't you a believer in third-order records? How do you reconcile your No way no how we compete next year with the fact that they're a 500 team by that measure? (And only 3 games under by simple pythag)

[davell]

Toonster, I certainly value your insight, but I look at Arrieta at this point and don't think I'd even trade them Alberto Cabrera straight up for him. And I'm not even a fan of Cabrera. Arrieta is a decent enough buy low type. But not as anything of value in a Garza deal. The O's just aren't much of a fit. Their comp pick next year, the vast majority of their IFA money, Rodriguez, and Arrieta for Garza? It isn't overwhelming me by any stretch. I'd rather get one premium piece(top 50 type, like the Beltran-Wheeler swap) than a bunch of quantity.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Kyle, aren't you a believer in third-order records? How do you reconcile your No way no how we compete next year with the fact that they're a 500 team by that measure? (And only 3 games under by simple pythag)

 

I am.

 

First, I very specifically did not say "no way, no how." Just "it's a really long shot."

 

The problem is two-fold:

 

1) We are going to have to do a lot of good work this offseason just to get back to where we are now.

 

2) This division looks like it's super-duper-awesome going forward and is loaded with young talent even on the already-good teams, so .500 + variance probably still isn't enough.

 

Before you even think about moving forward for next season, you have to replace Garza, Feldman and Gregg. Then you have to build the entire rest of the bullpen out of essentially nothing. All this in an offseason market that looks pretty thin on pitching, imo. So if you assume that you can pull like 6-8 MLB-quality pitchers together from the market in one offseason with no misses, and you're comfortable with Hendricks/Cabrera as your depth at AAA, then you've maybe got a playoff-caliber pitching staff.

 

That's the pitching. To upgrade the position players, you basically must have one of the big-name outfielders. We've gotten just about as much mileage out of cheap platoons as we could possibly get this year, and we're going to have to hope each and every one of them can repeat this year's performance.

 

But let's say for a minute that all that does come together in a rather improbable string of taking steps forward, avoiding steps backward, and hitting on all your new acquisitions. Now you've got like an 85-win team that'll play like an 81-win team with the brutal divisional schedule. You're probably the 4th-best team in a five-team division and are praying for 8 wins of positive variance to be enough to win half a playoff spot.

 

I'm not saying they should be throwing in the towel yet, but I am saying I am very pessimistic about their 2014 chances.

[SouthSideRyan]

Are the Reds, Cardinals, and Pirates all good bets to stay as good as they are? Because top of my head, I don't think any of them are.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Are the Reds, Cardinals, and Pirates all good bets to stay as good as they are? Because top of my head, I don't think any of them are.

 

I think so.

 

The Cardinals and Pirates have oodles and oodles of young talent. The Reds are probably due for a step back, but not a huge one and they could fall quite a bit and still be pretty good.

[SouthSideRyan]

The Pirates are 5 games better than their 3rd order, and are getting the best offensive seasons of their career from pretty much everyone on their team...and the best pitching seasons of their career from pretty much everyone on the team.

 

The Cardinals have to replace Beltran, Westbrook, and Mujica

[TruffleShuffle]

i hate to say it, but the cardinals are positioned nicely to be good for quite a while. hopefully [expletive] goes wrong for them.

 

i'm not really going to lose too much sleep on whether the cardinals will be really good, because there are two wild cards now. to make the playoffs the cubs need to get better, not win as many games as the cardinals. the pirates will always have payroll problems; some of their prospects will flop. a team in that market is pretty much always going to have to have a high hit rate on mid-priced free agents to remain good over a prolonged stretch. the reds have a lot of good young pitching that's about to start getting a lot more expensive, so they're going to have tough decisions to make on latos, leake, bailey and chapman. and they'll be paying phillips and votto a truckload of money as they get worse at baseball.

[XZero771679666304]

i hate to say it, but the cardinals are positioned nicely to be good for quite a while. hopefully [expletive] goes wrong for them.

 

i'm not really going to lose too much sleep on whether the cardinals will be really good, because there are two wild cards now. to make the playoffs the cubs need to get better, not win as many games as the cardinals. the pirates will always have payroll problems; some of their prospects will flop. a team in that market is pretty much always going to have to have a high hit rate on mid-priced free agents to remain good over a prolonged stretch. the reds have a lot of good young pitching that's about to start getting a lot more expensive, so they're going to have tough decisions to make on latos, leake, bailey and chapman. and they'll be paying phillips and votto a truckload of money as they get worse at baseball.

 

This, pretty much. The Cards are a good bet to stay good for a while, but the Bucs and Reds are definitely working against time, for the reasons you mentioned. The Reds especially have not been doing themselves any favors financially.

[Infrequent Poster]

Anyone have any interest in Drew Pomeranz from the Rockies?

[TruffleShuffle]

the other problem for teams like the reds is that, while they're good or at least contending, it's hard for them to make the types of trades that smallish market teams need to make in order to stay good. look at the reds, for example. bronson arroyo is the type of pitcher that would draw plenty of interest around the trade deadline - durable, consistent, can slot in and be solid as a #4 on a contender. but they can't really trade him because cueto keeps getting hurt and i'm sure good ol' dusty would like a proven veteran for the stretch run. (although if everyone is healthy, arroyo might be their 6th best starter, which speaks to how good their SP is). same with choo - he's one of the better OF in the game this year, and he could bring a really solid return at the deadline, but contenders don't trade players like him. so they'll just have to let him walk.

 

IMO the reds are really only going to be able to keep one or two of their starters long term, so their best bet is to maximize the return for a starter with arbitration years left - probably at least two of latos, bailey, cueto and leake will need to be dealt in the next two years. end up with a rotation of something like bailey, cingriani, leake, robert stephenson (if he's as good as everyone thinks he is) and some mid-tier FA, scott feldman type.

[TruffleShuffle]

Anyone have any interest in Drew Pomeranz from the Rockies?

 

he threw fastballs on 78% of his pitches last year, which was 4th most among pitchers with 90 innings. the other guys who did it just have better fastballs, in terms of movement and/or velocity (this is shown in their pitch values on fangraphs). while pomeranz has shown positive value from his fastball, his curve and change had very poor results last year. i guess you can look at this two ways - he's never going to be a good mlb pitcher if his secondary offerings don't improve, but on the other hand, he really wasn't that bad considering that he had only one above-average pitch and he had to rely on it heavily. i think at worst you'd get a dynamic bullpen arm who smashes LH batters, and maybe if his secondary pitches come along then a lot more. but i'm pretty sure the rockies are at the point where they're giving him away for peanuts.

[Cubswin11]

Angels have won 6 in a row, still 9 out of the division and 7.5 out of the wildcard. You know they will be buyers if they can be within shouting distance so it's probably good if they continue the win streak. Do they have any prospects of note after the Greinke trade?

[Guest]

Angels have won 6 in a row, still 9 out of the division and 7.5 out of the wildcard. You know they will be buyers if they can be within shouting distance so it's probably good if they continue the win streak. Do they have any prospects of note after the Greinke trade?

 

We've been linked to Bourjos before, and now he's of no use to their efforts to get back in the race since he's hurt. He'd be a great target.

[Guest]

Speaking of the Cubs, they are all but certain to trade potential free agents such as right-handers Matt Garza, Scott Feldman and Kevin Gregg but aren’t necessarily inclined to move outfielders David DeJesus and Nate Schierholtz, both of whom they control for 2014.

 

Schierholtz can be had for the right piece, sources say, but the Cubs can retain him for next season by offering him a raise on his current $2.25 million salary. DeJesus, currently on the DL, is the rare Cub who gets on base. Club officials also like his makeup, and they hold a $6.5 million option on his for ’14.

 

I advise you not to read the horse [expletive] prior to that about the Cubs to which he refers.

 

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/jason-kipnis-cleveland-indians-second-baseman-all-star-team-consideration-notes-063013

[TruffleShuffle]

Speaking of the Cubs, they are all but certain to trade potential free agents such as right-handers Matt Garza, Scott Feldman and Kevin Gregg but aren’t necessarily inclined to move outfielders David DeJesus and Nate Schierholtz, both of whom they control for 2014.

 

Schierholtz can be had for the right piece, sources say, but the Cubs can retain him for next season by offering him a raise on his current $2.25 million salary. DeJesus, currently on the DL, is the rare Cub who gets on base. Club officials also like his makeup, and they hold a $6.5 million option on his for ’14.

 

I advise you not to read the horse [expletive] prior to that about the Cubs to which he refers.

 

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/jason-kipnis-cleveland-indians-second-baseman-all-star-team-consideration-notes-063013

 

i like the first paragraph of that article:

 

Take a guess: Which player has the highest OPS of any second baseman in the American League?

 

wait let me think. the name jason kipnis appears in the hyperlink. and is in the title of the article. and there's a big photo of jason kipnis directly beneath that.

 

is it jason kipnis?!?!?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Age of the Pirates' top six position players by fWAR: 26, 24, 30, 26, 27, 26. They're getting a lot of career years because they have a lot of talented guys in their primes. Meanwhile, Garrett Cole has already hit the big leagues and Taillon will get there sometime next year, both far more talented than anyone we have hitting until at best Sept. of 2014. And their FO has shown just as much of a knack as ours for finding undervalued starting pitching on the FA market. Their small-market status may get them eventually, but they've been planning around this window for a long time, and it doesn't look to me like it's closing in 2014.

 

The Reds may get consumed by Votto's contract eventually, but it's actually structured to go down $7 million next year. They'll need to replace Arroyo, but the rest of their rotation is 24, 26, 24 and 26. I expect them to be a bit worse next year, but they're on a 94-win 3rd-order pace, so they could drop a few wins and still be problematic.

 

The Cardinals have so much absurd young talent that they are going to win 100 games every year for the next 15 years. I don't even want to get into them.

 

I don't think the idea that the Cubs can get better next year is that far-fetched, but I do think the whole "it's the NL Central, these small-market teams will collapse next year under the weight of their low payrolliness" is wishcasting. All three of these rivals have a pile of young, core talent that easily rivals or surpasses our own, better supporting casts at the big-league level, and two of them have farm systems that are in the same tier as ours. The new CBA and league-wide revenues are making small-market problems less impactful every year, but even if they do catch up to those teams, I don't see much reason to think it'll be 2014 when it does.

 

All that said, I do agree that I don't think we should be giving up on 2014 already. We can take our best shot and dump at the deadline if it fails. The premium we get for dumping from 2014 resources before the 2013 offseason even begins isn't worth giving up on a season despite the relatively grim outlook.

[Exile on Waveland]

This century, the Cardinals have won:

 

95

93

97

85

105

100

83

78

86

91

86

90

88

49 so far (second-best record in league)

 

So, uh yeah, I'm going to go out on a limb and say they'll be good next year. And then you factor in all their young talent.

Edited July 1, 2013 by Exile on Waveland

[TruffleShuffle]

where the players stand in their arbitration progression is a lot more relevant than their ages. a guy like neil walker, who's been an extreme bonus for the pirates, becomes a lot less of a bonus when he's making $8-10m in two years. right now they've only got cost certainty with two players, tabata and mccutcheon. they should really be looking to make more of those deals with the likes of marte, alvarez and cole.

[Guest]

For the purposes of the conversation, I don't think it really matters what the status of the other teams are in the division, but since we're talking about them:

 

PIttsburgh's top 4 pitchers by fWAR are 2 relievers, Liriano, and Burnett. Their offense is currently being anchored by Starling Marte playing at a 6-7 win pace and Russell Martin the 5 WAR catcher. They're significantly outperforming their pythagorean. They have some good young players but their performance this year doesn't scream sustainability.

 

The Cardinals have fewer position players on track for above average seasons than the Cubs. I'll also take the under on 14 WAR from M. Carpenter and Molina next year. They have a great top end of the rotation, but their pitching depth doesn't wow you enough to forget that their positional depth may not be as spectacular as it seemed in April.

 

The Reds will lose Choo and Homer Bailey isn't a 5 win pitcher, but their performance seems to be the most sustainable to me. They don't have the farm system and continue to give Dusty Baker money to make decisions, so they'll run the risk of being the new Brewers, burning through the good pitching they managed to cobble together before they can really make a run.

 

Really though, to reiterate, this doesn't really matter much to the issue at hand. The Cubs can't control how good the other teams in the division are going to be, and baseball has way too much variance for me to let the status of a couple teams on July 1 impact how the chances of next season should be viewed.