Jake is Back

[squally1313]

So with all appropriate caveats about how much of a horsefeathsrs PTR is and how it shouldn't have been an either/or... you've gotta chalk it up to Jed here. He turned Darvish and Vic into

 

Davies

Joc

Jake

Romine

4 good prospects

 

Plus whatever You'd money can buy in '22/'23. In a season where pitcher attrition is going to be through the roof? Yu was my favorite player on the team by a good bit but it's really hard not to say this is better for the team's competitive outlook.

 

We got a handful of pitchers who maybe, potentially will put up more WAR combined in way more innings than Darvish will do by himself, a Schwarber clone without the memories, a worse and older backup catcher, and 4 teenagers who won't sniff Wrigley until the few remaining good players we have are sold off or washed up. Yay.

 

I'm not a huge fan of the specific players involved here, but to play devil's advocate, I think we've got a bit too much recency bias with how Darvish's production is being assumed. He was phenomenal last year, but consistency has never been his hallmark, and (relatedly), neither has pitch economy which will likely play a big factor in how much value he can accrue this year in particular. ZiPS has him at 3.1 fWAR in 151 IP this year, and while I don't think it's way off, I think it's closer to being optimistic than pessimistic. There's more than a few potential outcomes where Davies' durability plus a small tweak or Arrieta getting a second wind out of Philly lead to either of them outproducing Darvish(the biggest injury risk of the group) alone, never mind the rest of players Darvish's money may have been put towards.

 

My biggest criticism of Hoyer's offseason so far has been the shape of the returns he's gotten and the players he's targeted. Some of it is more understandable than others, I can kinda see the approach to this season's pitching being a one off in terms of getting across the 2021 bridge where no one will be able to add maximum value and on the other side you have clarity about the position player core + the farm system in a full season. So even though I'd rather have had folks with more team control or a likely future beyond 2021 than Davies and Arrieta, I can live with it. Similar things could be said about Joc too, and my feelings that the Darvish return is appropriate value but should have been on average closer to MLB is still true.

 

While his health has always been an issue, I don't think his consistency on the mound is really too big of a question. Yeah it's a little bit of recency bias to only look at second half 2019 and 2020, but I think it's also a little unfair to set the new cut off at 'beginning of 2018' when before that his fWAR/inning (to use a crude statistic) seemed really stable:

 

2012: 191.2 IP, 4.7 fWAR

2013: 209.2 IP, 4.6 fWAR

2014: 144.1 IP, 3.5 fWAR

2016: 100.1 IP, 2.8 fWAR

2017: 196.2 IP, 3.7 fWAR

 

Yes, pitchers break, he's 34 years old (6 months younger than Jake), etc. But he also just put up 3 fWAR in 76 innings, and ZIPs seems to be projecting a lot less innings than the rest of the models. You can make an argument that no pitching performance should be assumed, but don't think you can do it just for Darvish, especially compared to someone like Arrieta who walks guys and will spend a lot of time with guys on base.

 

Agreed entirely on 'closer to MLB'....biggest criticism of the offseason in total.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I may have something similar re: 2018-present for Darvish, but to be clear the only performance I explicitly mentioned above was his 2021 ZiPS forecast. But even then I think if you take a large but logical timeframe, say after his TJS which strips out pre-injury and mid-20s Darvish that aren't very applicable to his current form, his performance has run the spectrum from 'top of rotation starter' to 'a little above average' to 'missing lots of time with injury'. Plus you're layering on his lack of stamina from 2020 and his 34 year oldedness on top of it.

[squally1313]

I may have something similar re: 2018-present for Darvish, but to be clear the only performance I explicitly mentioned above was his 2021 ZiPS forecast. But even then I think if you take a large but logical timeframe, say after his TJS which strips out pre-injury and mid-20s Darvish that aren't very applicable to his current form, his performance has run the spectrum from 'top of rotation starter' to 'a little above average' to 'missing lots of time with injury'. Plus you're layering on his lack of stamina from 2020 and his 34 year oldedness on top of it.

 

Which you can say all of the same for Arrieta, only Darvish just got done doing the good stuff whereas Jake has been trending away for four years now, with a more recent injury history. If we're just focusing on 2021 Zips, which is fine because I think it's the best of the options, I'll go back to my original point. Arrieta and Davies are projected to put up 3.0 fWAR in 267 innings, Darvish is 3.1 fWAR in 151. You can layer in Trevor Williams and his (encouraging) 1.4 fWAR in 140 innings, but I don't think it's fair to line Darvish up against all three, especially when Williams is getting paid less than Lester.

 

Darvish has 140 innings (40 in 2018, 97 in the first half of 2019) of bad pitching where he fought injuries. Before that and especially after that, he's been a top 30 pitcher when he's pitched. And his bad first half of 2019 resulted in a lower ERA than what Jake just did.

[Bertz]

I may have something similar re: 2018-present for Darvish, but to be clear the only performance I explicitly mentioned above was his 2021 ZiPS forecast. But even then I think if you take a large but logical timeframe, say after his TJS which strips out pre-injury and mid-20s Darvish that aren't very applicable to his current form, his performance has run the spectrum from 'top of rotation starter' to 'a little above average' to 'missing lots of time with injury'. Plus you're layering on his lack of stamina from 2020 and his 34 year oldedness on top of it.

 

Which you can say all of the same for Arrieta, only Darvish just got done doing the good stuff whereas Jake has been trending away for four years now, with a more recent injury history. If we're just focusing on 2021 Zips, which is fine because I think it's the best of the options, I'll go back to my original point. Arrieta and Davies are projected to put up 3.0 fWAR in 267 innings, Darvish is 3.1 fWAR in 151. You can layer in Trevor Williams and his (encouraging) 1.4 fWAR in 140 innings, but I don't think it's fair to line Darvish up against all three, especially when Williams is getting paid less than Lester.

 

Darvish has 140 innings (40 in 2018, 97 in the first half of 2019) of bad pitching where he fought injuries. Before that and especially after that, he's been a top 30 pitcher when he's pitched. And his bad first half of 2019 resulted in a lower ERA than what Jake just did.

 

I don't think there is, or at least should be, much argument with Darvish's production on a per inning basis. I think deGrom, Cole, and Bieber are the only guys I'd for sure take over him right now.

 

But Darvish has never been a paragon of health and durability, and now he's in his mid 30's. Add to that how brutal this season is expected to be from an injury standpoint, and I think the volume approach is probably the smart play. Taking three pitchers who project to ~3.5 WAR is probably better than having that tied up in one guy this season.

 

And I think that's doubly true in the Cubs' case. The team lost three starters to FA, and PTR has decided to be as miserly as ever. While I get the point you're making with 267 vs. 150, this team needs those extra innings. The options were Yu's 150 and a HEAVY reliance on the Iowa crew, or the route that Jed took (which will still rely on Iowa more than we have in quite a while as it is).

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Which you can say all of the same for Arrieta, only Darvish just got done doing the good stuff whereas Jake has been trending away for four years now, with a more recent injury history. If we're just focusing on 2021 Zips, which is fine because I think it's the best of the options, I'll go back to my original point. Arrieta and Davies are projected to put up 3.0 fWAR in 267 innings, Darvish is 3.1 fWAR in 151. You can layer in Trevor Williams and his (encouraging) 1.4 fWAR in 140 innings, but I don't think it's fair to line Darvish up against all three, especially when Williams is getting paid less than Lester.

 

For sure, I don't want the takeaway to be 'actually there's no difference between Darvish and Arrieta or Davies', if you need to put money on who will be the most productive then you should put all of it on Darvish. What I'm getting at is that because of the mitigating factors to Darvish's productivity(some of which exist for the others, like age for Arrieta or inconsistency for Williams/Davies), you're dragging down Darvish's likely standard to a level where variance can lead to one of those others matching or eclipsing him, and because you've distributed the risk in multiple players, that chance is non-trivial even if it's not the most likely.

 

To try to say this in a more concise way, if Darvish had an incredible season in 2018 at age 31, you would be way more confident of him setting a higher standard than 3.1 fWAR in the following year because he wouldn't have the age or stamina concerns he has now. Since those concerns do exist for 2021, you create greater surface area for other players to match or exceed his productivity, especially when you have multiple players doing so for the same resources.

[squally1313]

I may have something similar re: 2018-present for Darvish, but to be clear the only performance I explicitly mentioned above was his 2021 ZiPS forecast. But even then I think if you take a large but logical timeframe, say after his TJS which strips out pre-injury and mid-20s Darvish that aren't very applicable to his current form, his performance has run the spectrum from 'top of rotation starter' to 'a little above average' to 'missing lots of time with injury'. Plus you're layering on his lack of stamina from 2020 and his 34 year oldedness on top of it.

 

Which you can say all of the same for Arrieta, only Darvish just got done doing the good stuff whereas Jake has been trending away for four years now, with a more recent injury history. If we're just focusing on 2021 Zips, which is fine because I think it's the best of the options, I'll go back to my original point. Arrieta and Davies are projected to put up 3.0 fWAR in 267 innings, Darvish is 3.1 fWAR in 151. You can layer in Trevor Williams and his (encouraging) 1.4 fWAR in 140 innings, but I don't think it's fair to line Darvish up against all three, especially when Williams is getting paid less than Lester.

 

Darvish has 140 innings (40 in 2018, 97 in the first half of 2019) of bad pitching where he fought injuries. Before that and especially after that, he's been a top 30 pitcher when he's pitched. And his bad first half of 2019 resulted in a lower ERA than what Jake just did.

 

I don't think there is, or at least should be, much argument with Darvish's production on a per inning basis. I think deGrom, Cole, and Bieber are the only guys I'd for sure take over him right now.

 

But Darvish has never been a paragon of health and durability, and now he's in his mid 30's. Add to that how brutal this season is expected to be from an injury standpoint, and I think the volume approach is probably the smart play. Taking three pitchers who project to ~3.5 WAR is probably better than having that tied up in one guy this season.

 

And I think that's doubly true in the Cubs' case. The team lost three starters to FA, and PTR has decided to be as miserly as ever. While I get the point you're making with 267 vs. 150, this team needs those extra innings. The options were Yu's 150 and a HEAVY reliance on the Iowa crew, or the route that Jed took (which will still rely on Iowa more than we have in quite a while as it is).

 

I think you're overestimating Darvish's injury tendencies and underestimating how often the general population of pitchers gets hurt in general. Yu made 31 starts in 2019 and 12 in 2020, so let's be generous and say he's made his last 43 starts in a row. 2018 was mostly a lost year, but there was a lot of criticism at the time over how the training staff handled the injury, how long it took to diagnose it correctly, etc. How far back are we including to knock him for injuries (while discounting how good he was back when he was healthy)? And Zach Davies, hailed as an innings eater, spent half the year on the DL, made 13 starts, and didn't make the postseason roster. Arrieta was shut down in August 2019 for bone spur surgery, and was shut down on 9/15 last year. Trevor Williams only made 26 starts in 2019. Things are going to happen, and they don't just happen to Yu.

[squally1313]

Which you can say all of the same for Arrieta, only Darvish just got done doing the good stuff whereas Jake has been trending away for four years now, with a more recent injury history. If we're just focusing on 2021 Zips, which is fine because I think it's the best of the options, I'll go back to my original point. Arrieta and Davies are projected to put up 3.0 fWAR in 267 innings, Darvish is 3.1 fWAR in 151. You can layer in Trevor Williams and his (encouraging) 1.4 fWAR in 140 innings, but I don't think it's fair to line Darvish up against all three, especially when Williams is getting paid less than Lester.

 

For sure, I don't want the takeaway to be 'actually there's no difference between Darvish and Arrieta or Davies', if you need to put money on who will be the most productive then you should put all of it on Darvish. What I'm getting at is that because of the mitigating factors to Darvish's productivity(some of which exist for the others, like age for Arrieta or inconsistency for Williams/Davies), you're dragging down Darvish's likely standard to a level where variance can lead to one of those others matching or eclipsing him, and because you've distributed the risk in multiple players, that chance is non-trivial even if it's not the most likely.

 

To try to say this in a more concise way, if Darvish had an incredible season in 2018 at age 31, you would be way more confident of him setting a higher standard than 3.1 fWAR in the following year because he wouldn't have the age or stamina concerns he has now. Since those concerns do exist for 2021, you create greater surface area for other players to match or exceed his productivity, especially when you have multiple players doing so for the same resources.

 

I get the argument that if you throw 3 or 5 or whatever starters of the Davies/Jake quality level out there every 5 days, your odds of finding a 3 WAR performance plus the odds of Darvish getting hurt/somewhat randomly turning bad are...significant? But you're also increasing the odds of having a lot of poorly pitched innings while you figure out if any of these guys are actually any good.

 

I'm ignoring the stamina issue because it's a blanket factor for every pitcher. Darvish can work deep into counts but he decided to stop walking people or allowing baserunners, so I'll take his 19 pitch 1-2-3s over Davies/Jake giving up a bunch of 1-0 line drive singles. Arrieta has fought injuries the last two years, Davies made every start in 2019 but didn't average 6 innings/start. If you're extra worried about stamina, I'll still take 150 innings from Darvish and 50 from....Tyson Miller? than 100 each from Jake and Davies.

[Bertz]

I think you're overestimating Darvish's injury tendencies and underestimating how often the general population of pitchers gets hurt in general. Yu made 31 starts in 2019 and 12 in 2020, so let's be generous and say he's made his last 43 starts in a row. 2018 was mostly a lost year, but there was a lot of criticism at the time over how the training staff handled the injury, how long it took to diagnose it correctly, etc. How far back are we including to knock him for injuries (while discounting how good he was back when he was healthy)? And Zach Davies, hailed as an innings eater, spent half the year on the DL, made 13 starts, and didn't make the postseason roster. Arrieta was shut down in August 2019 for bone spur surgery, and was shut down on 9/15 last year. Trevor Williams only made 26 starts in 2019. Things are going to happen, and they don't just happen to Yu.

 

I do think Yu is at elevated risk for injury, but even setting that aside you said yourself that ALL pitchers are at high risk for injury. If something happens to Zach Davies, you choose your favorite guy out of the Iowa rotation to replace him. If something happens to Yu Darvish, you choose your third, because the first two are already taking MLB starts. That's on PTR's penny pinching, but those were the realities Jed had to choose from.

 

In a normal season, or with a better team, I take the quality and figure out the quantity later. But this team was thin already, and we're heading into a season that might be apocalyptic on the injury front.

[squally1313]

I think you're overestimating Darvish's injury tendencies and underestimating how often the general population of pitchers gets hurt in general. Yu made 31 starts in 2019 and 12 in 2020, so let's be generous and say he's made his last 43 starts in a row. 2018 was mostly a lost year, but there was a lot of criticism at the time over how the training staff handled the injury, how long it took to diagnose it correctly, etc. How far back are we including to knock him for injuries (while discounting how good he was back when he was healthy)? And Zach Davies, hailed as an innings eater, spent half the year on the DL, made 13 starts, and didn't make the postseason roster. Arrieta was shut down in August 2019 for bone spur surgery, and was shut down on 9/15 last year. Trevor Williams only made 26 starts in 2019. Things are going to happen, and they don't just happen to Yu.

 

I do think Yu is at elevated risk for injury, but even setting that aside you said yourself that ALL pitchers are at high risk for injury. If something happens to Zach Davies, you choose your favorite guy out of the Iowa rotation to replace him. If something happens to Yu Darvish, you choose your third, because the first two are already taking MLB starts. That's on PTR's penny pinching, but those were the realities Jed had to choose from.

 

In a normal season, or with a better team, I take the quality and figure out the quantity later. But this team was thin already, and we're heading into a season that might be apocalyptic on the injury front.

 

Totally get your point, but also think it's a false choice of Yu Darvish or all three of these pitchers. If you really think we couldn't have afforded Trevor William's $2.5m salary without dumping Darvish, sure. But most likely he was going to be here regardless, because those spots got opened up by letting Q and Lester walk.

[Cubswin11]

The tweet isn’t clear, but since Jake is official I’m guessing if you’re put on the COVID list you don’t count on the 40-man? So that was the move for Jake.

 

Edited February 17, 2021 by Cubswin11

[JeffH]

The tweet isn’t clear, but since Jake is official I’m guessing I’d you’re put on the COVID list you don’t count on the 40-man? So that was the move for Jake.

 

 

Yes.

[David]

[Rex Buckingham]

 

Glad someone is filling Mark Gonzales' shoes

[Backtobanks]

Interesting Story:

 

 

From MLBTR:

Jake Arrieta signed a one-year, $6MM deal with the Cubs last month, returning to the site of his Cy Young Award-winning prime years. Arrieta’s initial great run in Chicago could have been cut short, however, had the Marlins been willing to include J.T. Realmuto as part of a trade package with the Cubs in 2014, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal writes. The Marlins weren’t in contention in 2014 but were looking ahead to build for 2015, eyeing Arrieta as a big rotation piece. It was known at the time that the Cubs were floating Arrieta on the trade market, perhaps looking to sell high after Arrieta had turned his career around after previously being dealt from the Orioles to the Cubs.

 

Interestingly, Realmuto was not regarded as a blue-chip minor leaguer at the time, as he didn’t appear on top-100 prospect lists from either MLB.com or Baseball America until after the 2014 season. After middling numbers in his first four pro seasons, Realmuto emerged in 2014 while playing for Miami’s Double-A affiliate and even bypassed Triple-A that year to make an 11-game MLB cameo on the Marlins’ active roster. Still, the Marlins obviously believed in Realmuto’s potential, and the trade negotiations fizzled out