Trade Value
I imagine most of you probably have read a Bill Simmons column at least once. While he’s not much of a baseball analyst, his stuff is a fun read, and he has a running column he does every year ranking the top 40 players in the NBA in terms of trade value. Analytically, its a puff piece, full of cliches and unsupported arguments that, in the grand scheme of things, mean nothing. But every year, I enjoy reading it. It’s not serious analysis, but variety is the spice of life. So, as we enter the Week Of Insane Rumors, I figured I’d kick it off with my baseball version of his idea, and rank the 40 most valuable commodities in baseball. I’ll let him summarize the rules, though I’ll change the examples for those of you who don’t follow the NBA:
A. Salaries matter. Would you rather pay Bobby Crosby $2 million for the next three years or Derek Jeter $44 million for the next three?
B. Age matters. Would you rather have Pedro Martinez for the next five seasons or Roy Halladay for the next 12?
C. Pretend the league passed the following rule: For 24 hours, any player can be traded straight up for any other player without budget ramifications. So if Team A tells Team B, “We’ll trade you Player X for Player Y straight up,” would Team B make the deal or not?
D. Concentrate on degrees. For instance, neither the Marlins nor Cardinals would pull the trigger on an Pujols-Cabrera trade. But at the very least, the Marlins say, “Wow, Albert Pujols is available?” while the Cardinals would say, “There’s no way we’re trading Pujols.” That counts in the big scheme of things.
E. Make the list in reverse order (Nos. 40 to 1). So if Alex Rodriguez comes in at No. 19, players 1 through 19 are all players about whom New York would probably say, “We hate giving up A-Rod, but there’s no way we can pass up that deal.” And they wouldn’t trade him for any player listed between Nos. 19 and 40.
Fair enough? Oh, and my own personal add-on rule: This is for fun. Try not to get too worked up over this. Feel free to disagree, make your own list, whatever. But try not to get offended, okay? Off we go.
#40: Daniel Cabrera, RHP, Baltimore
If you take away Felix’s command, you have Daniel Cabrera. Huge velocity, dominant groundball pitcher, impossible to hit, and crazy wild. Even when he’s not throwing strikes, he’s not bad, and if his command ever improves to passable, he’s an all-star. Also just 24 years of age and making the league minimum.
Baseball America’s Rule 5 Preview
Good stuff on potential picks and other related stuff.
No Mariners on the potential selectees. With their roster full, it’s unlikely the M’s will be clearing any room to take some gambles.
Burnett to Blue Jays, other good stuff
In this mid-day filing from the PI.
The Mariners, from this short piece, appear to now be headed after Millwood or pursuing trade offers (which, really, is wise: if you can’t get Millwood, even at a premium, you’re better off not getting involved with the remaining second-tier free agent pitchers).
With the recent signings and all the noise about the market, I want to share a couple of thoughts Jeff and I were tossing around.
First, there is more money in the market right now. Shared media revenue is up in particular, so teams have more money to spend. So in turn, when teams evaluate how much they can afford to spend, there are a couple of factors that go into it (how well they think the player will perform, how that’s worth to them, how close they are to the playoffs, and so on).
Then there’s the knapsack problem. Sayyyy you’re the Mariners, and you have one position to fill and $15m to do it. You have four choices:
A: Random minor league free agent, $350,000, baseline
B: Modestly coveted cast-off, $1,000,000, +1 win
C: Good undervalued free agent, $5,000,000, +3 wins
D: Highly coveted free agent, $11,000,000, +5 wins
You pick D if you’re trying to win then, even though that’s clearly not the most efficient choice (and may limit your ability to make roster moves in the future, and so on).
Beyond the market rising, though, there are several things worth noting:
– Don’t chase a market. There’s a difference between understanding that a commodity is more valuable and buying tulip bulbs in 1636. If a win is now worth $2 million instead of $1.5, that doesn’t make B.J. Ryan’s contract defensible as a value purchase.
– (related) This is cyclical. A few years ago, an average left-fielder got a 1 or 2 year deal for a couple million a year and the players were investigating whether owners were colluding. It looked like teams were doing a much better job valuing players, particularly the concept of scarcity. But it turned out not to be a long-term trend: this year, that’s out the window. It’ll be back.
– Be flexible. If the free agent market would suck up your payroll budget and force you into long-term deals that hurt the team, look elsewhere. This, more than anything else, is the lesson of “Moneyball” (not “OBP is awesome!!!”): look for undervalued commodities. In this case, for instance, you could look to free agents towards the end of their fat contracts, picking up a shorter deal for one of those guys. You could, if your organization is sufficently flexible, buy every Cuban defector and phenom from Latin America for a year. Or, as Dave’s argued, you shop for what other teams overlook: defense, for instance, or players who might succeed with your team that struggled elsewhere.
Rumor roundup
Not much new to report. The dailies are mostly rehashing rumors we’ve hashed out in the past (Juan Pierre, Jeromy Burnitz, etc.).
One older rumbling is effectively shot down by both Larry Stone and certain east coast media reports. Evidently both the Tigers and Mariners have asked about Carl Pavano and been rebuffed by the Yankees, who say they aren’t trading him. This is for the best. For the M’s, anyway.
The team’s pursuit of A.J. Burnett looks less and less likely, and it seems their attention is turning to Kevin Millwood. Word is that the M’s came way up on their offer to Millwood this morning, and they’re pushing Scott Boras to get a deal done in the next few days.
Then there is this in today’s TNT:
Sources say the Mariners have already approached the Rockies to inquire about starters Aaron Cook and Jason Jennings. But Colorado has balked so far.
Neither of these guys excites me. Jennings has been terrible, and he can’t blame all of that on Coors Field given his road splits. Cook pitched pretty well during his partial season, but there’s that scary history of pulmonary blood clots. As with all trades, it would depend on what we’d have to give up –but it appears the Rockies aren’t interested anyway.
Finally, in other news: I was going to argue that Congress had much more important things to do than investigate the BCS. But seeing what they did to Oregon, I say go, legislators, go!
All Ichiro, All the Time
The Times today has a bunch of Ichiro coverage, stemming from the now famous “I’m unhappy” interview which led to numerous articles about a month ago. Finnigan states that the P-I received three seperate translations of the original interview, and that one did not agree with the other two. Keizo Konishi, who conducted the interview, feels that certain aspects — specifically about card playing in the clubhouse and team leadership — made their way into the translation despite not being part of the original interview. Here’s the rundown of coverage:
Finnigan: Lost in Translation
Konishi: Reporter Aims to Get it Right
Translation 1: Newly acquired from Kyodo News Service
Translation 2: From “Number” Magazine
Given the translation issues involved, this is a potentially delicate subject. That aside, however, there’s a bunch of good Ichiro content, stuff like him talking about his swing, swinging at first-pitch strikes, and so on.
Felix and the WBC
Long story short, King Felix wants to pitch for his native Venezuela in the upcoming World Baseball Classic, but the M’s, as you might imagine, don’t want him to. They’ve gone so far as to file “an official objection,” according to Larry Stone. Over in the PI, Morosi goes a bit more in-depth on the topic, pointing out the similarities between this situation and that of Rafael Soriano, who injured himself pitching for the Dominican Republic in the 2004 Caribbean Series. The M’s also filed objections for Travis Blackley and Chris Snelling, though their agent says this is of little concern given that injuries would prevent either player from participating even if they wanted to.
I’m torn on this. Sure, I don’t want those extra innings on his arm. But on the other hand, do you really want to piss him off? He’s going to be a free agent someday, after all. In case you were wondering, the M’s have already made sure Felix won’t be pitching winter ball this year.
Interesting side note: Kenji Johjima has already turned down his invitation to play for Japan, choosing istead to work on learning his new pitching staff. I like this guy already.
At the bottom of the article you’ll find some notes on minor league managerial moves, which mostly means guys moving up a level since Dan Rohn was promoted to the major league coaching staff.
Juan Pierre
Another item of note in the Morosi article that I think merits its own thread:
The Mariners have inquired about the availability of Marlins outfielder Juan Pierre and left-handed pitcher Ron Villone, a former Mariner. Pierre’s arrival would displace Jeremy Reed in center field and create a curious scenario at the top of the order. Pierre is regarded as a true leadoff man, and Ichiro Suzuki has a stated preference to bat first.
Boy, Ron Villone and Juan Pierre? Christmas came early this year! With extra coal!
Morosi hits on a few of the problems with this — Jeremy Reed is suddenly a man without a country, Ichiro becomes startled at the acquisition of Ichiro Lite — but let me drop one more. Pierre’s arm would conjure up images of Randy Winn’s halcyon days.
More to the point, Pierre doesn’t seem to fill any of the team’s stated needs. Why would the team give up something presumably of value for him when other matters are more pressing?
There are only two positives that could come from bringing Juan Pierre to town: first, he might feel inspired to drop another “Wiggly Feel” verse on us at some point; second, his middle name is “D’Vaughn,” so I would get to make all kinds of lame Dudley Boys jokes.
We know of the organization’s fondness for Villone, so at trying to bring him back was predictable. I have no idea why they would want to do acquire Pierre, unless doing so is the precursor to an additional move.
M’s after Matt Morris
We all appreciate Dave around here. Some of us appreciate his well-reasoned statistical analysis. Some of us are fond of his mad photographic skills. And often, we are grateful for his Karnacian ability to predict the future.
This is not one of those times.
Jim Street reports this morning that the M’s may be turning their attention to Matt Morris. You may recall that this is one of Dave’s projected moves for the Mariners.
Note the difference between “projected” and “endorsed.” He’s also on Dave’s list of free agent landmines, and with substantial justification.
Morris’ numbers post-All Star Break: in 88 inning, he had just 44 strikeouts and gave up 113 hits on his way to a 5.32 ERA. Those after-the-break numbers compare to another pitcher you might have heard of.
Fortunately, several other organizations are tiptoeing around the Morris landmine, so one of them has a chance to save the M’s from a mistake. And for your daily dose of sunshine, Jon Paul Morosi speculates that the team’s chances at Kevin Millwood may be enhanced by Bill Bavasi’s relationship with his agent.
On balance, though, I’d have to guess that Dave’s prediction will be borne out. He’s often right about things, and we usually like it when he is. Usually.
Back Away From My Betancourt
Recently, I’ve stated that I feel like the most undervalued commodity in baseball currently is defense. I feel that you can build a team that is great at run prevention for less than you can build one that is great at run scoring. I’ve advocated acquiring a number of players for their defensive prowess, and have been against the acquisitions of big name, lead glove sluggers with equally big contracts.
So, this may come as a bit of a surprise, but I think the Mariners are making a mistake by declaring Yuniesky Betancourt off limits in trade talks. I love Betancourt’s glove as much as anyone else. I even wrote a glowing review of his defensive prowess a few months ago. I think it’s fairly clear that Betancourt has all the ability to be an elite defensive player. There’s no doubt that his abilities in the field are special, and finding a player with his skills is rare indeed.
However, let’s be realistic with what we have here.
The best defensive players in the league are approximately 20 to 30 runs above an average defensive player at their position. There are certainly seasons where they save more than 30 runs above average, but those peak seasons don’t appear to be representative of a true talent level, as nobody consistently puts up numbers in that stratosphere. So, if we give Betancourt’s glove full credit for being one of the very best defensive performers in all of baseball, we’ll give him 25 runs above an average shortstop for his work with the leather.
Now, we get to his offense. He didn’t embarrass himself in Seattle, but he certainly wasn’t an offensive force, either. His .256/.296/.370 mark would project to be about 12 runs below what an average shortstop in Safeco Field would put up over the course of a full season. If we assume that his bat will improve a bit, say, to .270/.310/.390, he’d be about 6 to 8 runs below average over the course of the year.
So, next year, we’re looking at the possibility of Betancourt being worth something like 15-20 runs above what an average shortstop would put up if we assume that he’s the best defensive shortstop in baseball. That’s a valuable player, no doubt. A 23-year-old shortstop who is above average and signed to a low-value contract for the next 3 years? I’ll take two, please.
But why, exactly, is Yuniesky Betancourt untouchable? Here’s a few infielders who were approximately 25 runs above average at their positions in 2005:
Rafael Furcal
Chase Utley
Julio Lugo
Mark Ellis
Placido Polanco
Good players, all. But if that’s Betancourt’s ceiling, and we have to acknowledge that there’s a significant possibility that he won’t fulfill every inch of his potential, don’t we have to look at ourselves and wonder if this is the type of player that we cannot afford to part with. Even if Betancourt turns into the next Rafael Furcal (which, I’d say, there’s about a 5 percent chance of), that’s a borderline all-star, a good player that you’d like to have but certainly not the best player on a championship club.
Betancourt is a good player at a position the M’s need a good player. But if Arizona comes calling with a package of Stephen Drew and Conor Jackson (they won’t), you better believe I’m saying yes before they can change their minds.
I’m glad Betancourt’s a Mariner. But I can’t say I’m thrilled that the organization considers him to be off-limits in any trade discussion.