Phillies Acquire Blanton
Dave · July 17, 2008 at 3:53 pm · Filed Under Mariners
The Phillies have acquired Joe Blanton from the A’s. You can cross Philly off the list of places Washburn or Bedard might end up. The M’s need to hurry up and dump Washburn before the few teams that might want him have moved on.
The Phillies gave up top second base prospect Adrian Cardenas (who I’m a big fan of), as well as 23-year-old southpaw Josh Outman, who isn’t much worse than Blanton right now. Pat Gillick continues his fine tradition of making horrible, franchise crippling trades as he walks away from an organization.
You like both Washburn and Blanton more than I do, I guess.
I wonder if this has anything to do with Fangraphs’s PBP info being different to what Matthew and I use.
The defence doesn’t help the cause either. Cost poor Jeff Weaver 21 outs and 20 runs last year, turning him from replacement level to abominable.
As someone from the Bay Area who sees quite a few A’s games, Blanton’s no great shakes. Pretty good depth on the curve but he just can’t miss bats so he’s forced to rely on his defense (which has been very good during his entire tenure with Oakland).
During his two good years, ERA-wise (2005 and 2007) he benefited from the following:
2005: BABIP of .241 (second in the AL. First? Barry Zito, also with Oakland.)
2007: 3.5 K/BB ratio, nearly double the rest of his MLB career
So if he walks nobody or gets really lucky on balls in play, then he looks like a superficially good pitcher. Otherwise, see his 2006 and his 2008. There’s so much variation in the runs he allows because his style isn’t based around outcomes that a pitcher has any control over.
People who follow the M’s may have a skewed impression of Blanton because he’s pitched better against the Mariners than against the other teams in the AL West (or other teams in general).
I pulled the stats in #39 from THT, since I assumed that’s where the data feeding tRA came from.
We pull data directly off MLB.com (for easy automation’s sake) – it’s one of the reasons we had to recalculate run and out values.
What possible use could St. Louis have for Ibanez?
I still like Putz and Betancourt to the Dodgers for Andre Ethier and Chin Lung Hu (plus some other minor leaguer if Putz looks healthy between his return and the trade deadline). I know Dave was saying they could get that for just Betancourt, but I’m a pessimal realist.
54: Once the M’s finally figured out Blanton, though, they were able to beat him up a couple of times.
Add Ed Wade to that mix and you’d have the New Three Stooges! 🙂
I’ve read a rumor with the Twins. Liriano and Cuddyer for a power-hitting 3rd baseman. That sounds as though Beltre’s being talked about?
WOW. We had a chance to deal Ibanez and/or Bedard for some 2nd or 3rd tier prospects, and we get nothing. Typical, even when we’re dealing with Stand Pat. We still have all the problems and no solutions. What a mess.
let’s see. the Dbacks chose a player they all know, who they love for his leadership & mentoring, who knows the NL & their park and is owed about $450,000 vs a player just the manager knows, who has been in the AL all his career, and is owed about $3M.
And [h]e wasn’t asking for Max S. What[‘]s the deal[,] Pelekoudas?
Hey Dave, I just read Keith Law’s writeup on ESPN about the Blanton trade and he seems to have a fairly stark difference in opinion from you on the players Oakland received (he thinks Outman is a LOOGY and Cardenas is an average-at-best 2B). Just curious where you think the difference in your opinion from his lies.
Franchise crippling? Come on, I know Gillick isn’t loved around these parts, but that’s some heavy hyperbole right there.
Trading 2 A-ball players (1 a genuine prospect), and a mediocre AA pitcher for 2 years of a decent MLB starter is not even in the same zip code as “franchise crippling”. The Phillies did not give up any of their higher-level top prospects, nor anyone from the big-league club. The Bedard trade, now that’s a crippler.
It’s not even a sure bet that Cardenas sticks at second….. he may end up in a corner.
Interesting that you mention increasing HR rate for Blanton, but not for Outman, who has allowed 3 HR on 61 flies so far.
For Blanton, the HR effect would have been between 2 to 3 HR so far this year (using +20% HR/FB% adjustment going from ~9% to ~11%).
As a fan of neither team, I’m interested to see what happens when he goes to an environment with a DER 22 points lower. That could potentially have a much larger impact than a couple extra homers.
Any idea why the Phils moved Outman to the bullpen this year? Were there injury/tiredness issues when he was a starter? Or is this just a way to get him to the show quicker?