Bronson Arroyo
Because those annoying Reed-for-Arroyo rumors won’t go away, I figured I’d do a quick explanation of why such a trade would be a terrible idea. One in a long series of terrible ideas, unfortunately.
Arroyo is actually a similar, though right-handed, pitcher to Jarrod Washburn, who we’ve discussed to death the past few days. Their overall profile is very similar.
Extreme flyball pitcher. 30 percent of the batters Washburn faced hit outfield flies, 9th most out of 216 MLB pitchers who faced at least 300 batters. He’s a more extreme flyball pitcher than every Mariner except Julio Mateo (the most extreme flyball pitcher in the majors).
Slightly above average walk rate. In fact, his percentage of batters faced that drew walks (7.75%) is almost identical to Roger Clemens (7.76%). Command isn’t a big problem for Arroyo. He throws strikes.
Pitch-to-contact starter. He struck out 11.38% of the batters he faced. Ryan Franklin’s mark was 11.16%, for comparison. Among those same 216 pitchers with at least 300 batters faced, Arroyo ranks 196th in strikeout rate.
Essentially, Arroyo has one skill; throw the ball over the plate. He doesn’t miss bats, and he doesn’t induce groundballs. He’s a use-your-defense guy who relies on his outielders to run down an awful lot of balls in the gaps and hopes that his flyballs don’t leave the yard too often.
It’s not a reliable package, as Franklin should have taught the organization. In cases where the team’s outfield defense is spectacular, and when matched with the right park, these guys can be superficially useful, as Franklin was in 2003 and Aaron Sele was in 2001. But their shelf life is short, and they’re surviving on the backs of their more talented teammates.
To make matters even worse, to acquire Arroyo and his flyball proclivities, the M’s would have to part with Jeremy Reed, who, at worst, is able to cover center field competently (I’m not sold on him being a great defensive CF yet, but he’s clearly not bad). In replacing Reed, the M’s would almost certainly have to settle for a defensive downgrade, whether it be Willie Bloomquist, Preston Wilson, or pretty much any other available center fielder. If you like the idea of replacing Reed on the open market, you may want to ask yourself why the Yankees, who are currently starting Bubba Crosby in CF, looked at these same options and said “no thanks”.
So, remove Reed from CF and replace him with Bloomquist, for instance. Now you have an outfield defense of Ibanez (average to poor), Bloomquist (poor), and Ichiro (great). Not exactly Winn-Cameron-Ichiro. In order to succeed, Arroyo requires fantastic defensive outfielders behind him. In order to acquire Arroyo, we have to remove a big part of what would be the team’s outfield defense. Not exactly the best way to make sure Arroyo’s strengths are maximized, is it?
If the M’s are determined to have a veteran pitch-to-contact innings sponge at the back of the rotation, Arroyo isn’t even superior to Jason Johnson. Johnson, a free agent, is basically a groundball version of Arroyo. Throws strikes, doesn’t miss bats, but induces groundballs instead of flyballs. Oh, and he doesn’t cost us Jeremy Reed.
Ideally, the M’s would just get over their hangup with marginal starters who depend on their defense for their value and actually acquire pitchers with some real talent, but that apparently is asking too much. So, in the vein of lowered expectations, I’m simply asking that if the M’s are going to pay several million for a replacement level contact pitcher, let’s make it the guy who doesn’t cost us Jeremy Reed, okay?
Please.
Comments
176 Responses to “Bronson Arroyo”
And in other money-smoking news, here’s from Doug Miller’s MLB.com mailbag:
What is the contract status of Bloomquist and Gil Meche?
— Tom M., Seattle
Both players are eligible for salary arbitration, and both are likely to qualify for significant raises. Meche made $2.5 million last year and will probably be looking for at least $4 million in 2006, which would make him a prime contender to be non-tendered on Tuesday (Dec. 20) if the Mariners decide to go with another pitcher in the starting rotation. Bloomquist played in 82 games last season and made $385,000 as one of the Mariners’ most valuable utility men. He’ll probably be trying to at least double his 2005 salary.
“One of the Mariners’ most valuable utility men”?
Who were the other ones?
The P-I is reported that the Washburn signing is a done deal, too: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/baseball/252646_mari19ww.html
Um … uh … Mike Morse? Dave Hansen?
[deleted extremely long URL pasted as text]
Washburn official
#145– the problem with the Ms psych test (as we also learned in Out of left field) is the player actually has to fill in the form himself 🙂
btw, former KJR guy/now MLB radio guy Seth Everett weighed in today with the thought that signing Washburn was a good thing, as he’s a better pitcher than Millwood. sigh.
Nothing makes me feel more secure in my opinion than Seth Everett disagreeing. If Skip Bayless chimes in with the same thoughts as Seth, call it a lead-pipe cinch.
Why would the Sox trade Papplebon? Maybe they’ve taken a look at organizations like a certain NW based club supposedly stocked with young pitching and watched none of it develop? Maybe they realize that getting a young position player that fills a glaring need at a cheap price is a good risk for an unproven pitcher?
I’m a Red Sox fan by birth and I think this might be a win/win deal for both clubs. Of course if I’m the Sox I’m doing everything in my power to get the M’s to give me Reed for an easily replacable part like Aroyo, but if the M’s don’t budge I’ll give up something of decent value for Reed assuming I don’t want to spend what Damon is asking for or I decide I need to get younger in the outfield (not a bad decision).
You move Ichiro and then you’ve got a much easier problem to solve in finding a decent right fielder.
If the market is flush with decent RFs, why did we sign Carl Everett to play DH? Hint: instead of moving Ibañez to LF, we could have signed this mythical RF and had him play LF, and not wasted money on Everett. It’s not like it’s a BAD thing to have a LF with a good arm- Willie Stargell had enough arm to play RF, but since the Pirates had Clemente in RF, he played LF.
Heck, there’s a good case to be made that Preston Wilson would be a better DH than Carl Everett (handedness and all), assuming he becomes a Mariner signing. And I’m also wondering why if we’re settling for Washburn over Millwood, and Everett over Giles, why we have enough money to add Preston Wilson at 4-5 million. If we go from Ibañez at DH and an OF of Winn/Reed/Ichiro to a DH of Everett and an OF of Ibañez/Bloomquist/Ichiro, that’s a downgrade at THREE positions (DH, LF and CF)… all to get versions of Ryan Franklin who’ve pitched for the Angels and Red Sox.
The most depressing part of the M’s release about the Washburn signing:
“At the start of this offseason, our goals were to acquire a high-quality starting pitcher, add offense, re-sign Jamie Moyer and, ideally, upgrade our catching,” Bavasi said. “Today’s announcement marks the final, and perhaps most important, in that off-season list of goals.”
Basically, Bavasi is not only saying “we’re done”, but that he considers it a SUCCESSFUL offseason.
Remember the salad days of last year, when the M’s offseason, even if you didn’t agree with it 100%, didn’t make you want to burst into tears?
Dave. Why do you say that Arroyo’s 7.1 K’s per 9 in 2004 must be a fluke? You cite his minor league K rate of 6.9 per 9 as partial evidence. But isn’t this almost evidence for the 7.1 being a reasonable expectation? Sure, rates should go down in the majors but it’s not like he was K’ing 4 per 9 in the minors.
I heard that Arroyo developed his slurve his last year in AAA with the Sox. He K’d 155 guys in 149.2 innings that year (2003). I’m not sure why his minor league numbers before that are all that relevant. Is that K rate so inconsistent with 7.1 per 9 in the majors?
Don’t get me wrong. As I said earlier, I’m a Sox fan and I want them to trade Arroyo for Reed. I want the Sox to become a younger team and I think that Damon will likely be very overpaid for at least half of a 4 year contract.
#151, Jim – Those MLB.com mailbags never cease to amaze. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry…
If the market is flush with decent RFs, why did we sign Carl Everett to play DH? Hint: instead of moving Ibañez to LF, we could have signed this mythical RF and had him play LF, and not wasted money on Everett. It’s not like it’s a BAD thing to have a LF with a good arm- Willie Stargell had enough arm to play RF, but since the Pirates had Clemente in RF, he played LF.
I think we’ve effectively established that Bavasi is an idiot. That’s why we signed Everett to DH. When you have 2 centerfielders on your team you’ve got a lot of flexibility. The fact that the M’s refuse to acknowledge that Ichiro is best used in CF eliminates that path of thinking. There are lots of things the M’s could have done this offseason to make the team better. Signing Everett and Washburn and Kenji and calling it good doesn’t mean there weren’t better paths.
I just received a Mariners press release in my e-mail. It says the M’s have bolstered their pitching staff. Then it goes on to talk about how they signed Washburn to a four-year contract. It goes on from there but never does explain how the M’s bolstered their pitching staff. Odd. Very Odd.
Dave. Why do you say that Arroyo’s 7.1 K’s per 9 in 2004 must be a fluke? You cite his minor league K rate of 6.9 per 9 as partial evidence. But isn’t this almost evidence for the 7.1 being a reasonable expectation? Sure, rates should go down in the majors but it’s not like he was K’ing 4 per 9 in the minors.
I wanted to point this out as well. Looking at Arroyo’s statistics, we only have two major years that he was a starting pitcher (2004, 2005), but looking at his overall K/9 rates from his rookie season, the oddities appear to have been his miserable 2001 (3.97) and 2005’s dropoff. I see nothing that indicates that Bronson Arroyo is a 4.38 K/9 guy as his last season indicated. So why is the 2004 a fluke and the 2005 more realistic?
K/9 by year
2000 – 6.28
2001 – 3.97
2002 – 7.33
2003 – 7.27
2004 – 7.15
2005 – 4.39
I realize that we should analyze his most recent achievements in order to detect for dropoffs, declines, and other fluctuations associated with age, but Arroyo isn’t exactly near the age decline curve yet. I’m not denying the flyball tendency, as Arroyo appears to be, at best a 1:1 ratio guy, and at worst extreme flyballer, but his K/9 seems to be a huge question mark as to the reasons for it to have wavered so badly this last season.
2002 and 2003 combine for about 50 innings out of the bullpen. By not including IP or role, the line is massively misleading.
Minor League K rates are significantly higher than major league K rates. Arroyo’s minor league strikeout rate basically translates to about 5.7 in the majors, which is about his career average.
The problem isn’t that Bavasi doesn’t know that this kind of analysis exists. He just values it less than we do. Given his history in scouting and player development, that is unlikely to change. As long as the organization values their scouts opinions of a player’s mental toughness over performance, we’ll have these kind of problems.
The Brewers are another team with and “old school” GM, who values scouts opinions more than stats and when Washburn expressed interest at giving the Brewers a “hometown” discount, Doug Melvin told Boras “No Thanks”.
Having a “old school” GM isn’t a death sentence. Having the WRONG one is.
If only we could get that “gamer” Craig Counsell and his two World Series rings, then the clubhouse would gel and they would win!!
Who belives this stuff?
Actually, Mevlin’s one of the best GMs in the game, and he’s done a fantastic job in Milwaukee.
Dave. I think you’re cheating on the statistics, yourself, when you say that the rates quoted by typical idiot fan are only 50 ip and are misleading.
He apparently quoted only the major league numbers in Pittsburgh in 2002 (27 ip) and Boston in 2003 (17.1 ip).
In 2003, Arroyo was a starter in Pawtucket and, as I noted earlier, struck out 155 batters in 149.2 ip, a rate of 9.3 batters per 9 ip. Again, is that so incongruous with his rate of 7.1 per 9 ip in the majors in 2004?
Actually, Mevlin’s one of the best GMs in the game, and he’s done a fantastic job in Milwaukee.
Agreed.
But he and his right hand man Gord Ash would never in a million years be accused of using a SABR approach. But they rely heavily on gb/fb stats for their pitching staff.
I think Bavasi leans more on his father’s legacy for his baseball education and what is, is what is. Period. He knows, you don’t.
He has hired Squiggy TWICE as a scout.
Does Dan Evans have any input in the front office at all, or do I overvalue his job with the Dodgers?
I wonder if Doug Melvin doesn’t at least take a look at the SABR perspective on things. He was part of the Red Sox front office in 2002 and must have been exposed to that perspective on things.
I really wonder if even the most outspokenly old school GM’s don’t have a guy somewhere in a back room crunching numbers 24/7 for them while they drawl out paeans to scouts.
#171– “he has hired Squiggy TWICE as a scout.”
yeah, and that fact has so much to do with Bavasi’s baseball acumen.
Bavasi got scout credentials (unpaid, mind you) for a baseball-smart friend (who is a former AAA-team owner, btw) — one who at the time he first hired him was trying to deal with the loss of acting work due to his Multiple Sclerosis…
If the M’s don’t have another OF on speed-dial like Kenny Lofton, Preston Wilson, or Jaque Jones, then I don’t approve of a Reed-Arroyo trade.
yeah, and that fact has so much to do with Bavasi’s baseball acumen.
Well, I had ment that point as a humorous quip, but point taken.
Not that you brought up reason he SHOULD paid to be a scout other than he likes baseball or as he said in 2000 . . .
“I told them I shouldn’t be a scout,” Lander says of that first call from Bavasi and Fontaine in 1997. “I knew what I thought a scout should be, and I didn’t think I had it.”
Please forgive my ignorance.
But also, please inform me of the name of the scout that suggested Speizio and Olivio and I’ll insult them instead.
Well it’s either going to be Arroyo or Matt Clement. Clement is like a Jason Johnson though. Well until he took a line drive to the head.