Diffusion

What incentive do the Devil Rays have to trade Johnny Gomes?

It's easy to say that, but can you come up with the alternative to Eyre/Howry production via trade or other FA signing? How do you know that wasn't market value for Eyre/Howry? The fact that they've already signed, it not even being December, hints at as much. You statement sounds very speculative to me. Do you have first hand knowledge that neither Eyre or Howry have negotiated/talks with other teams? Do you have first hand knowledge that Eyre and Howry had talks/negotiated contracts with other teams? Of course it's "very speculative". Find me something around these parts that isn't. Anyway, there's been very speculative speculation from people that may have first hand knowledge, or may not, that Eyre never got to the stage of discussing the zeroes with any of the other three members of the final four teams that he narrowed it down to. And, personally, I don't believe that Eyre came to Chicago just because he really loves Dusty Baker's laissez-faire approach to clubhouse management. For me at least, both hint at Eyre being given an offer above and beyond what he was hoping for (recall that Eyre was reported to be looking for $9m/3yrs), an offer that he didn't think was going to be topped, and an offer that he was scared might be withdrawn if he didn't jump on it. So he did. And you don't think that if Howry's deal was anywhere near market value, these last few days a good number of teams would have been trying to convince him to change his mind? And you don't think that if there were a number of teams trying to convince him to change his mind, his agent would have gone public with such information, in an effort to further increase his market value? Again, something doesn't really add up. It just looks too much as though Howry's been given an offer he can't refuse, which would tally with the actual offer he has been given, he's realised he's not going to do any better than what he's got on the table, he's realised it's not worth him drawing anything out to try and get more, and he's jumping on it before the Cubs come to their senses. That's what happens when a guy that two years ago had to settle for a minor league deal gets eight figures waved in front of him. Let's look at the free-agent non-closer relief-pitcher signings from 2004-05: Terry Adams, $500k/1yr Antonio Alfonseca, $300k/1yr plus team option Wilson Alvarez, $4m/2yrs Ricky Bottalico, $800k/1yr Doug Brocail, $1m/1yr Jim Brower, $310k/1yr Jason Christiansen, $1m/1yr plus team option Rheal Cormier, $5.25m/2yrs Elmer Dessens, $1.3m/1yr plus team option Koo Dae-Sung, $1.28m/1yr plus team option Joey Eischen, $1.04m/1yr Cal Eldred, $600k/1yr Alan Embree, $3m/1yr? John Franco, $700k/1yr Aaron Fultz, $550k/1yr Chris Hammond, $750k/1yr Dustin Hermanson, $5.5m/2yrs Bob Howry, $0.9m/1yr Bobby Jenks, waiver claim Todd Jones, $1.1m/1yr Steve Kline, $5.5m/2yrs Ron Mahay, Undisclosed/2yrs plus team option Matt Mantei, $750k/1yr Jim Mecir, $1.1m/1yr Kent Mercker, $4.3m/2yrs Dan Miceli, $1.7m/1yr Mike Myers, $600k/1yr Antonio Osuna, $800k/1yr Cliff Politte, $1m/1yr plus $1.2m team option Steve Reed, $1.05m/1yr Al Reyes, $600k/1yr John Riedling, $750k/1yr Scott Schoeneweis, $5.2m/2yrs Mike Stanton, $316k/1yr Rudy Seanez, $500k/1yr Salomon Torres, $2.6m/2yrs Derrek Turnbow, waiver-claim Kevin Walker, $525k/1yr Dave Weather, $1.35m/1yr Ben Weber, $600k/1yr Esteban Yan, $2.25m/2yrs Not a three year deal in sight, not more than $5.5m on offer anywhere. And, yes, there's a lot of rubbish pitchers listed there, but I don't think many here would complain about a bullpen involving the likes of Politte, Howry, Seanez, Turnbow, Jenks, Myers at those prices... Okay, 2003-04 now... Terry Adams, $1.7m/1yr Antonio Alfonseca, $1.35m/1yr Armando Almanza, $500k/1yr Rod Beck, $1.75m/1yr plus $1.75m team option Joe Beimel, $535k/1yr Chad Bradford, $965k/1yr Hector Carrasco, $800k/1yr Fransisco Cordero, $2m/1yr Will Cunnane, $525k/1yr Joe Dawley, $300k/1yr Valerio De Los Santos, $850k/1yr Mike Dejean, $1.5m/1yr Cal Eldred, $900k/1yr Scott Eyre, $2.45m/2yrs Kyle Farnsworth, $1.4m/1yr Chad Fox, $1.2m/1yr John Franco, $1m/1yr Tom Gordon, $7.25m/2yrs Jason Grimsley, $1m/1yr Shigetoshi Hasegawa, $6.3m/2yrs LaTroy Hawkins, $11m/3yrs Felix Heredia, $3.8m/2yrs plus team option Matt Herges, $2.5m/2yrs Roberto Hernandez, $775k/1yr Jose Jiminez, $1m/1yr Steve Kline, $1.7m/1yr Curtis Leskanic, $1.25m/1yr plus $1.25m team option Al Levine, $925k/1yr Kerry Ligtenberg, $4.5m/2yrs Mike Lincoln, $1m/1yr Tom Martin, $3.3m/2yrs Kent Mercker, $1.2m/1yr Jose Mesa, minor league contract Dan Miceli, $600k/1yr Guillermo Mota, $1.475m/1yr Jeff Nelson, $1.5m/1yr Jesse Orosco, $800k/1yr Akinori Otsuka, $2m/2yrs Cliff Politte, $800k/1yr plus $1.3m team option Paul Quantrill, $6.8m/2yrs Steve Reed, $600k/1yr plus $650k team option Ricardo Rincon, $3.65m/2yrs David Riske, $1.025m/1yr JC Romero, $820k/1yr BJ Ryan, $1.275m/1yr Justin Speier, $1.6m/1yr Scott Strickland, $650k/1yr Scott Sullivan, $5m/2yrs Shingo Takatsu, $1m/1yr Mike Timlin, $2.5m/1yr plus $2.75m team option Ron Villone, $1m/1yr Kevin Walker, $450k/1yr Ben Weber, $600k/1yr Gabe White, $2.15m/1yr Scott Williamson, $3.175m/1yr Tim Worrell, $5.5m/2yrs Kelly Wunsch, $800k/1yr Chad Zerbe, $325k/1yr Obviously a considerable number of these signings are of players not eligible for free agency. All the same, none of the deals are offering 3 years, with the obvious exception of the one the Cubs handed out. And none of the deals are offering more than $7m, and that was handed out by the Yankees. Again, maybe you can make an argument that there's no-one out there of the same calibre as Howry/Eyre, it probably wouldn't be that good an argument, but whatever... There's really nothing pointing to any market existing for either Howry or Eyre involving 3 years and upwards of $11m.

It's easy to say that, but can you come up with the alternative to Eyre/Howry production via trade or other FA signing? How do you know that wasn't market value for Eyre/Howry? The fact that they've already signed, it not even being December, hints at as much.

How does Howry signing with the Cubs help the bullpen of the Arizona Diamondbacks? 2005 NL Bullpen ERA Cardinals, 3.17 Padres, 3.49 Nationals, 3.55 Astros, 3.63 Mets, 3.86 Brewers, 3.87 Giants, 3.98 Pirates, 4.06 Phillies, 4.24 Cubs, 4.24 Dodgers, 4.42 Braves, 4.74 Reds, 4.75 Rockies, 4.80 Marlins, 4.85 Diamondbacks, 5.40

Red Sox trade a top prospect or two and get one of the most valuable young starting pitchers in all of baseball period, a decent third baseman, they get to keep both for two years at least and, considered together, the Red Sox are paying a decent price in dollars for them. Cubs trade a top(-pish) prospect and another pair of minor leaguers and get a player that on the whole is at best average, that is going to be paid as though he's above average, and that is a free agent in one year's time. One of these teams has a GM. The other doesn't. One of these teams has won ninety-five games in each of the last three years. The other has won ninety-five games once in the last sixty years. One of these teams has won the World Series under the current President. The other last won the World Series under Theodore Roosevelt.

No doubt someone will put me in the "will complain about anything" camp for this, but Hendry could almost certainly have got away with not protecting Pinto from the December 2003 Rule 5 draft...

Actually, having said that, and now having actually seen the details on Delgado's contract, I'm not so sure. I knew it was a $52m/4yr deal that Delgado signed with the Marlins last year. But I didn't realise it broke down like... 05: $4m, 06: $13.5m, 07: $14.5m, 08: $16m, 09: $12m mutual option vs $4m buyout provided Delgado doesn't involve himself in 08 MVP voting (in which case he gets a guaranteed $16m in 09). The money that they've sent to the Mets actually only covers the difference in state taxes, so the Mets are still on the hook for $48m/3yrs to a guy that'll be 36 by the time the deal's up. Ouch. The Marlins effectively got one superb year from Delgado (.301/.399.582 in 616 PA) at the cost of $11m and then traded him before his contract got ugly and he got old. Clever. The only thing that's not so clever is the haul they commanded from the Mets. Petit really doesn't have that much by way of stuff, and Jacobs' numbers look scarily like Jason Dubois'!

We have the several studs already, and I'm not saying we should trade them away. In fact, I personally believe we should add another one, in a corner outfield position. Barrett, Lee, Walker, Ramirez, maybe Murton and Cedeno as a long shot conform to the .340/.425 qualification. Maybe the Cubs have burnt their bridges with Nomar already, but there's another one. And altogether they're costing what, $25m, maybe $30m when Lee signs a contract extension, $35m if you bring Nomar back over Cedeno? When you've got a $100m payroll to work with, $25-35m on six starting position players is nothing. The Cubs can afford to spent $50-55m on their offence, and proved they spend it efficiently, they have my full backing to do so. The offence is by far this ballclub's biggest problem.

It's even better to have a couple of studs and the rest mediocre at worst. Look at the 2003 Red Sox. They scored 961 runs that year. Their lineup featured Varitek, Millar, Walker, Mueller, Nomar, Manny, Damon, Nixon, Ortiz. The only players with more than 200 AB that fell short of .340/.425 were Walker (.333 OBP) and Damon (.405 SLG). That is how you build an offence.

thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you So the NL All-star team then? No, just a lineup that isn't filled with Neifi, Corey, Hairston, Hollandsworth, Dubois, Burnitz type gaping holes. Those six players, all regular starters at some point, combined to give the Cubs 2633 PA last year (out of a total of 6159, so 43%), and put up a combined .302 OBP and .393 SLG. Personally, given the Cubs' resources, I don't think it's too much to ask that they go an entire year without fielding a regular starting position player that can't reasonably be expected to post a .340 OBP and a .425 SLG.

Regarding the main arguments in support of trading for Pierre at a price that includes Pinto and two other minor leaguers... 1) We could do a lot worse than Pierre, he's not that bad We most certainly could do a lot worse than Pierre. But, on the other hand, we could almost certainly also do a lot better, or we could do similarly, but at a far more reasonable cost. As a team with World Series ambitions and the money to fund those ambitions, settling for mediocrity should be a last resort, and we even then we should try and avoid paying over the odds for it. 2) Pierre will be better than what we had in centre field last year. And that too is certainly true. However, you could stick Neifi Perez out there in centre field and get better production that we got from our centre fielders last year. No, really: Cubs CF hit .234/.281/.362 in 2005. Neifi hit .274/.298/.383. As a result, better production than what we got last year isn't in itself a qualification. No, what the Cubs really need is better than league average production at every single position. That'd ensure a juggernaut lineup. And the average NL centre-fielder last year hit .275/.340/.437. Those are the numbers that the Cubs really ought to be looking to trump. Sadly, it's going to require a really great Pierre season for him to get his on-base percentage far enough above .340 to compensate for his complete lack of power and below par defence.

This is a nonsense. Pierre gets poor jumps/reads and doesn't take the best routes (too much sideways then back), and not even his blistering speed compensates. The fact that his arm is awful is a pretty minor factor in any overall consideration of his defence.

One thing that definately needs to be added to my assessment of Pierre is that he also has no history of injury-related problems either. He is a guy that you can pencil into the lineup just about every day of the year. I'd also add that he has a greater likelihood of being really bad than really good, since his ceiling isn't that fantastic. I actually disagree with that. Pierre's success with the bat is tied entirely to his batting average on balls in play, a lot of which is tied to his speed, a lot of which is tied to sample size variations, and who really knows why they occur? Certainly not me. Anyway, I think Pierre will find it difficult over a full season to hit much lower than the .293 on balls in play mark he set in 2005, simply because of his speed, and so he shouldn't really get too much worse than that, injuries aside, obviously. Meanwhile another year like he had in 2004, maybe a touch better, certainly isn't out of the question.

Let's set the record straight on Pierre, who's 28 years old: he's a marginally above average hitter, with potential for significant variation in both directions, he's below average defensively, he steals an awful lot of bases, but gets caught too frequently, he's a free agent after 2006, he's slated to earn in the region of $5m this year and, for what it's worth, he has no history of chemistry-related problems.

Oh if Pinto's in the deal Hendry shouldn't let the door slam him on the way out as far as I'm concerned.

My guess is that Greenberg's in the deal now but wasn't a few days ago.

Thievery by the Mets.

Good question, but I'm not sure I can give you an answer. Historically, official stats haven't keep track of a pitcher's TB allowed, so computing a pitcher's SLG is a bit difficult for the masses of data you'd need to study the question properly. Stealing the raw-(ish) numbers from here, and he doesn't actually give a source, I think it's pretty safe to say that flyball pitchers allow significantly higher slugging percentages than groundball pitchers... 2004 --Groundballs accounted for 42% of all batted balls, but 45% of singles, 14% of doubles, 42% of triples and 0% of home runs (approximately 33% of all hits, 11% of all extra-base hits and 23% of all total bases) --Flyballs accounted for 33% of all batted balls, but 8% of singles, 35% of doubles, 30% of triples and 86% of home runs (approximately 23% of all hits, 53% of all extra-base hits and 39% of all total bases) --Line drives accounted for 18% of all batted balls, but 46% of singles, 50% of doubles, 28% of triples and 14% of home runs (approximately 43% of all hits, 36% of all extra-base hits and 37% of all total bases) --Popups accounted for 8% of all batted balls, but 1% of singles, 0% of doubles, triples and home runs (0% of all hits, 0% of all extra-base hits and 0% of all total bases) The key number there in terms of slugging percentage is that groundballs account for 42% of all batted balls, but 23% of all total bases; whereas flyballs account for 33% of all batted balls, but 39% of all total bases. In terms of total bases per batted ball of that type, flyballs trump groundballs easily. Anyway, I've emailed Dave Studeman (Studes) to see if I can get some better info out of Baseball Info Solutions, but it looks almost certain that logic holds its own here.

Was Williams added to SF's 40-man in 2002 or 2003? If it was 2003 he still has an option to burn, but if it was in 2002 he'd be out of options, as well. Williams was added to the 40-man roster on November 20th 2002. He burned his first option year in 2003. However, he was not optioned to the minor leagues during the 2004 season, and so his demotion in 2005 only burnt his second option year. As a result, he has one option year remaining.

I agree with the gist of your argument, but I wouldn't go quite that far. Pitchers do have quite considerable control over the types of batted balls that they allow - groundballs, flyballs, line drives etc. They have enough control over it that, for instance, your money is pretty safe if you bet on Carlos Zambrano having a higher GB/FB ratio that Mark Prior next year, or Glendon Rusch allowing the most line drives, or whatever.

So why doesn't that hold true for hitters? Prospectus are the same people who believe that a strikeout for a hitter is the same as any other out, right? I'm not trying to be contrarian ... I just want to know what the difference is. A perfectly good question. And the first thing to say is that sadly Baseball Prospectus' thinking on this matter is very poorly explained. They take big logical steps, logical steps that for the most part are sound, but, because they don't explain them properly, they only confuse people. The first thing to note is that the strikeout in itself is every bit as bad for a hitter as it's good for a pitcher. The reasoning is exactly the same. A strikeout is an out every time (well, incredibly rare passed balls and AJ Pierzynski not withstanding), and each and every time it fails to advance the runners. A ball in play, on the other hand, is not always turned into an out. As I explained before, that may because your shortstop has lousy range, your second baseman doesn't have good hands, your third baseman throws it away, your man in centre takes roundabout routes. It could be because it's just hit into a spot where your fielders aren't, and where no fielder could possibly be, and there's nothing you can do about it. It could dribble down the third base line, it could bloop just inbetween infield and outfield, or it could roll to your shortstop's right and third baseman's left, or wherever. And in a lot of those cases, it's normally the case that everyone has done their job, the pitcher's executed his pitch perfectly, the fielders were set up right and were on their toes, they did their best, no avail. It happens. Or the ball could just be smoked, and no-one even saw it before it landed in for a hit. Whatever. A strikeout is an out. A ball in play could be anything. Sometimes it's an out. Sometimes it's not. Who knows. Therefore, as a hitter, overlooking for now home runs, which technically aren't a ball in play, in an at-bat (note a distinction between at-bat and plate appearance being made here), it's better every time to hit the ball, and to not strikeout. You hit .000 on a strikeout. You'll hit somewhere around .280-.320 these days on a ball in play. And you'll hit 1.000 on a home run. The more you strike out, the lower your batting average. And the lower your batting average, if everything else stays the same, the lower your all-important on-base percentage and the lower your slugging percentage. That's why the strikeout in itself is a bad thing for a hitter, always has been, is now, ever shall be. The trouble is, the story doesn't end here. Whereas the strikeout for a pitcher is invariably the by-product of just flat out nasty unhittable stuff, for a hitter, the reasons behind the strikeout are very different. The strikeout is not always the product of sheer incompetence with the bat. Instead, it is often the by-product of certain approaches at the plate, approaches that, in spite of the damaging strikeouts, can, on the whole, result in a net positive. What approaches are these? Well, there are above all two main ones - 1) working deep into counts, being comfortable enough hitting with two strikes, being willing to take pitches, even if they're relatively close and 2) swinging hard, swinging with the intention of hitting for power, trying to pull the ball. Players that take one of, or both of, these approaches at the plate are a lot more susceptible to striking out. However, all of the bad of the strikeouts is often completely overwhelmed by the good of the walks and the extra-base hits and home runs. As a result, because of the same approaches to hitting that are causing them to strike out, hitters on the whole can be considerably more productive. The Baseball Prospectus line on strikeouts leaves out a lot of this reasoning. Instead they've boiled it down to..."the strikeout doesn't matter at all/the strikeout isn't a bad thing because all the best players (ie. those that hit for power and display a lot of patience) tend to strike out a lot". This is very misleading. The strikeout does matter, and it is a bad thing, and it's no co-incidence that the very best hitters in the game, Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols etc. are able to combine all the power and patience you could possibly want while barely striking out at all. It's just that the bad strikeouts can be easily be compensated for, and more besides, by the good of walks and extra-base hits and home runs that owe their existence to the same style of hitting. And if changing a player's game to limit their strikeouts led to you compromising their power and patience, it wouldn't be worth it. As such, you are generally better off putting up with the strikeouts from your hitters.

I bet if they did the same study with other stats, they'd find the same correlation though. WHIP, hits, walks, would all have a similar correlation as strikeouts, perhaps with a slightly higher standard deviation. Yes. Of course you'd find the exact same thing if you did it with walks allowed, or hits allowed. That's exactly the point. Not allowing hits and not allowing walks, and not allowing home runs above all else, all fantastic things to do if your goal is run prevention, and if you're a pitcher, it normally is. So if striking batters out produces the exact same correlation as not allowing hits and walks, and not allowing hits and walks is a good way to prevent runs, a tiny bit of logic leads you to the conclusion that striking batters out is a good way to prevent runs too, no? I at no stage said that striking batters out was the only way to prevent runs, which would be necessary for your response to undermine my argument (as it is, as I've shown above, all it does is back it up). Quite obviously it's not the case that the only thing that matters is strikeout rate. Home runs, walks and batted ball types (groundballs/flyballs/line drives) are all also important, in that order. And for the most part, there's not a huge amount of correlation between strikeouts and those three other factors. Greg Maddux succeeded because he did a superb job of limiting home runs and walks. As a result, to score a run off him, you needed to put together multiple hits before he got three outs, which is harder to do than you might imagine, particularly against a groundball pitcher that can fall back on the double play. He didn't succeed because he had any particular skill at preventing hits on balls in play... Greg Maddux, career 4406.1 IP, 4082 H, 298 HR, 907 BB, 3052 K, 3.02 ERA, 3.31 FIPS, 2.37 GB/FB, .284 BABIP The major league average BABIP from 1986-2004 (I can't include 2005 since the Lahman database hasn't been updated yet as far as I know, but it's effect is likely to be extremely marginal, at the very most adding maybe a point, no more) was .290. Ahoy, matey, there's a great big hole in your argument: Greg Maddux was a whopping six points better than the league average at preventing hits on balls in play. So his success had nothing to do with no good wood on the ball, and nothing to do with defensive swings, but everything to do with the fact he prevented home runs, he prevented walks, and, as a groundball pitcher, he got his double plays. That very high groundball rate, incidentally, is almost certainly the biggest reason behind Maddux's ERA undercutting his FIPS by three tenths of a run even over such a massive sample size. The failure of FIPS to take into account batted ball types is its biggest flaw. And it's not that big. One other thing, knuckleballers are a totally different kettle of fish, for completely obvious reasons.

"Je ne sais quoi", which is French, by the way, literally translates as "I don't know what". In other words, it's something that you cannot put your finger on; it exists, but you don't really know what it is, or you can't explain what it is. When it obviously ceases to exist, then there's nothing wrong with saying that he's lost his "je ne sais quoi", he's lost his "you know, whatever it was". I don't see this as Dayn Perry trying to look particularly clever at all. Rather I see it as you trying to make Dayn Perry look stupid, unsuccessfully so. A better line of attack for making Dayn Perry look stupid would involve disputing the idea that Dusty Baker had a "je ne sais quoi" to him in the first place. Anyway, no matter, welcome to the forum

I wouldn't know that because I'm not smart enough to spell it corretly either. :D Yeh, but that goes without saying. After all, you're not smart enough to spell correctly correctly either. :P

He's not smart enough to spell his je ne sais quoi correctly.