Rangers get Stairs, Kip. Rockies Find a Home For Shealy

A couple of good vulture-like moves by the Rangers. Texas picks up a hitter who is average as the lefty side of a DH platoon, something they probably needed; I don't feel that Jason Botts is as good as advertised. Most of the other AL contenders either already had a good DH or need the spot for convalescing outfielders, so once the M's picked up Broussard there wasn't much the Royals were going to get for Stairs. Joselo Diaz, the Royals' return on the deal, probably won't amount to anything, but Stairs, though cheap, isn't bringing much to the table for a team with no shot at contending.

Jesse Chavez, whom the Rangers dealt for Wells, is a mildly endearing middle relief prospect, so I kind of like the deal from Pittsburgh's side. But Wells clearly represents more value to the Rangers, even if he's only marginally better than the alternatives on hand.

The Royals did pretty well in picking up Shealy, I think, and the Rockies may have been over-motivated sellers. Affeldt is kind of an upgrade over Dohmann, and the Rockies have more use for Bautista as a long-term project than they think do for Shealy. Colorado may have gotten better value from simply using Shealy as their starter at first against LHP, which would add several runs per year. Shealy isn't really good enough that he makes sense as a major league regular, so the idea of trying to move him to somewhere where he would start probably trumped consideration of how to extract the most value for him. That being said, I don't think the Rockies really think sitting Helton against southpaws is necessary (it isn't), and if such a move is unnecessary and might alienate the star, I at least understand the reluctance to give it serious consideration.

Shealy probably has as much of a shot at breaking out as Bautista does, and given that he adds consistent value as a reasonable starter for a few years, it's pretty clear that his edge over Bautista for KC outweighs the marginal difference between the relievers.

Guzman, Pedroza for Lugo

This is a very good deal from the Devil Rays' perspective, and I think it's difficult to argue that Guzman isn't likely to be more valuable than the two picks in the 16-65 range the Rays would get from keeping him. I doubt that the Red Sox or Blue Jays had more impressive packages, although getting a couple of eventual average major league starters might have more value for the Rays than betting on Guzman. Pedroza could turn out to be relevant, too, although his defense is likely bad enough that the margin for failure with his bat is quite low.

On the other hand, it's perhaps disconcerting that the Rays have so many high ceiling hitters with reported 'makeup' issues. But I can't really see how stockpiling that type really hurts. Guzman might find himself playing first base for the Rays given their attempts to move Bankston to third, and perhaps that's where he should be.

From the Dodgers' side, I don't really like the trade, but it's not as offensive as most of their recent moves. I'd like to think that the Dodgers have made a scouting decision based on sound empirical research in deciding that Guzman just won't ever amount to much because of his poor command of the strike zone. If the Dodgers have decided that they need to get something for Guzman before his value shrinks, then this isn't too bad of a way to do so. On the other hand, though, there's reason for concern that the Dodgers made this move either because a) they felt they simply had to add somebody and/or b) they've panicked because Guzman hasn't been that impressive in 2006. Any prospect holding his own at age 21 in AAA - and Guzman is certainly doing fine - is very likely to be a good major league hitter. Unless he's just completely indifferent as a fielder, you'd have to think that someone as athletic as him would be able to be an average major league corner outfielder in the majors within a few years. Six years of that at low prices is, in all but extraordinary cases, more valuable than two months of a very good but not great shortstop. I'm tempted to take this decision on faith, but don't really think I should.

Given that the Dodgers do have Ethier, Drew, and Kemp in the bag and fringe regulars like Jason Repko and Delwyn Young already on board (and, hopefully, Jayson Werth), it's certainly fair to say that Guzman doesn't have as much value to them as he does to another team. While Guzman's path might be another year in AAA followed by a year as a RHB platoon partner and injury fill-in, the Dodgers don't look like they're starved for that particular piece, and Guzman would probably have a better shot at developing as a major league regular elsewhere.

The value beyond Guzman and the two to three months of Lugo evens out, since I think Pedroza's value covers the draft picks the Dodgers would get; he was a 2005 third rounder who's done well so far, and the Dodgers already paid his bonus. And given that the Dodgers already have a full infield (outside of first base) under contract for next season - with both Betemit and LaRoche legitimate options assuming Mueller isn't back - I don't think there's any meaningful value in the right to negotiate with Lugo a bit more. Sure, they might end up signing Lugo and trading Furcal, but that's a long shot and that little bit of flexibility isn't worth all that much.

So for the Dodgers the question is whether Lugo's contribution playing out of position for a third of a season is more valuable than 6 or so years of Guzman. Lugo is worth maybe 3-4 wins per season above Robles and Martinez, but then again Kent may be back with the team before too long. I'd say he's worth about one win, although I do agree that one marginal win has substantial value to the Dodgers this season.

I think I know what the answer is, but this time I'm willing to hope I'm wrong.

Chacon For Wilson

I really can't believe the Pirates just made this deal. Littlefield has a terrible track record, but it's pretty inconceivable that this is all he managed for a player who probably could have been traded for something good at any number of times, likely including the present. Chacon isn't as bad as most think, and he's obviously not as good as Yankees fans thought in the offseason. Conversely, Craig Wilson isn't an exceptional player. But it's pretty surprising that teams were clamoring for Soriano and Lee while Wilson was flipped for just this.

Maddux For Izturis

If the reports of Maddux + more than $1m to the Dodgers for Izturis are true, that's a surprisingly good deal for the Dodgers. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference, and I'm not sure that Maddux has much of an advantage over Tomko at this point. But the difference in salary for the rest of the year is only about $2m, so the cash should cover most. Izturis is due to be a little overpaid next season and the Dodgers have no reason to keep him. And the Dodgers might end up with some draft picks out of it, or possibly a reasonable deal on Maddux next season, which isn't worth a whole lot but isn't bad.

This one gets my stamp of approval for the Dodgers. For the Cubs, it's pretty asinine, and likely heartbreaking to their fans to be getting another weak-hitting middle infielder. Izturis does have some value, but probably not as much as Hendry thinks.

THT Projection Roundtable

Excellent read at THT today. David Gassko gathers the thoughts of several important people in the arena of baseball player projection.

I suspect that Part 2 will include a discussion of whether player projection systems should include "comparable players" and how to make use of that data. It's my take that generating a list of individual comparable players is not in itself useful; while it probably tends to improve projective accuracy with a less sophisticated algorithm, this is because it approximates better and more statistically sound research. It's a problem in that it, as far as I can tell, is done arbitrarily and confuses the samples of a handful of player-seasons for true talent level. Hopefully, a more illuminating discussion than what I've just offered awaits us.

The discussion in the article about the interplay of player role and projection is very important. I don't see why any projection should be pre-programmed to be a compromise that meets the middle ground between different player usages. Projections should demonstrate as broad a spectrum of player usages as possible, assuming that there is significance (that is, assuming that different players will have different values in different roles). While I understand that if you're a fantasy player you'd want to decide on just one number for a player's projection, the best way to do that is to decide the way you think that player will be used, assign probabilities based on that, and combine them with the role-specific projections. Just this weekend I've already demonstrated my irritation over the platoon numbers of two Rangers, Mench and Blalock. In projecting either one, you would want to include not only their results in the past, but also their context; most serious baseball folks have no problem acknowledging the need to park-adjust, but the need to platoon-adjust is just as often overlooked. Blalock, used properly, can easily beat almost any projection out there since they all are based in large part on his awful L-L hitting. Mench can likely do the same, to a lesser extent. (And consider that using a list of 'comparable players' would group together a hodgepodge of players whose future platoon usage could range from Earl Weaver's Orioles to the contemporary Rangers.) And a projection should then not give us one number, but different numbers for RHP and LHP, though the projection for either would be based on the data against all pitchers. Obviously, in most circumstances one needs to combine those figures to generate a projection of value, but projecting the value first and then breaking it down into roles is pointless.

I'd also like to see if the art/science of projecting batter-pitcher matchups can be fleshed out more thoroughly. I realize this is an overwhelming endeavor. But it could probably go a long way toward better deciding the viability of, say, a Barmes/Carroll platoon in Colorado (Barmes against groundballers, Carroll against flyballers). You would expect that pitch-by-pitch data and TLV data would not have a lot of utility in improving the projections for major leaguers (though I'd suspect there's a good chance it can improve projective accuracy for prospects), but using this data to help in-game decisions (and hence roster construction) could be pretty important.

Hank Blalock

The trade rumors that have raised my eyebrows the most are the ones that have the Rangers looking to deal Hank Blalock and the ones that have them looking to pick up Miguel Tejada. I realize that this may have something to do with other players they would acquire in the process, but I'd guess that it's more than likely that they'd be paying more than just Blalock to pick up Tejada when it's all said and done. In other words, we could be talking about the Rangers paying $29m to Tejada for 2006-8 instead of the $12m they would owe Blalock, plus also paying $13m to age-33 Tejada. And what's more is that, presumably, Texas wants to move Tejada to third base.

Tejada is definitely an excellent hitter, but this strikes me as making a move because it can be called an upgrade rather than because it is a meaningful upgrade. Tejada would probably provide better defense, but given that defensively Tejada isn't really a premier shortstop, we couldn't reasonably expect that to amount to much more than a win per year. It's hard to imagine projecting Blalock as a below average hitter, so even a generous projection for Tejada puts him only 20 or so runs above Blalock per season. So it would be unrealistic to expect Tejada to be worth much more than 3 wins per season over Blalock, or 7 wins over the course of Blalock's contract. That amounts to paying $17m for 7 wins, which is reasonable, but which quickly falls from that if the Rangers have to trade significant talent beyond Blalock for it.

However, Blalock has been a good hitter thus far in his career and is only 25, so it would be surprising if he wasn't more of a +10 type of hitter in his 26-27 seasons. Beyond that, there's a very easy way to almost nullify Tejada's offensive advantage: stop using Blalock against lefties. There are not that many LHB in baseball who should be getting starts against LHP, and it's extremely clear that Blalock is not one of the exceptions. Even in his disappointing 2005 and 2006 campaigns, he's hit about .300/.360/.460 against RHP. A right-handed hitting platoon third baseman is one of the easier pieces in baseball to pick up, and the Rangers already have one on hand in Mark DeRosa, and they've got enough RHB in the outfield that they don't need him playing there.

Moreover, one of the reasons the Rangers are purportedly shopping Blalock is that he is notorious for second-half slumps. Given that Blalock gets almost no days off, I don't think it would be surprising that giving him days off against southpaws would cut against the second-half declines.

While trading for Tejada could theoretically make the difference in the Rangers' postseason hopes, it will probably amount to picking up a few marginal runs per year at a $17m cost. And if the Rangers end up missing the playoffs by a game, it won't have been their failure to get Tejada that cost them; it will have been their reluctance to acknowledge the need to platoon Blalock.

Mench

This one's bothering me, kind of. I've now read several places that, following yesterday's trade, have alleged something along the lines of 'Kevin Mench can't hit outside of Arlington.'

This is really ridiculous. For some reason, it's not uncommon for people to use a player's road numbers as if they were the true sample, and the home numbers are treated as merely taint. Aside from the obvious statistical sampling problems this represents - you are cutting your sample size in half, most obviously - this practice neglects baseball's homefield advantage, which is quite significant. Mench has hit .263/.314/.454 outside of Arlington, and the AL average for road games in 2002-2005 was .264/.326/.421. So Mench has been above average on the road, especially if you consider that most of the league got to play its road games in Arlington. He hasn't been great on the road, no doubt, but we're dealing with less than 1000 PA here, and it would be ridiculous to assert that his 930 road PA tell us more about his ability to hit outside of Texas than a projection which regresses his data and incorporates the 1053 home PA would.

People sometimes use splits just because it's, I don't know, cool? I suggest that if you want to use splits to make a point about a player, the first split you should look at is how many plate appearances a player has against LHP and RHP. This will tell you more about how to adjust a player's performance for his future role than a home/road split. And in the case of Mench, it just so happens that it's somewhat illuminating. From 2002-2005, Mench only had 29% of his PA against southpaws, and this season it's been less than 26%. I don't know about you, but when I see a right-handed fringe regular like Mench, I tend to assume that he's being used against LHP each time out and is splitting time against RHP. And while the Rangers have largely treated Mench like a fringe regular in that sense, he hasn't had the platooned out playing time you would expect. Now cut to Milwaukee, who have lefties Gabe Gross and Geoff Jenkins in the outfield. The latter in particular would look a lot better if he hadn't been hitting against southpaws so often. Sure, if Milwaukee uses Mench in the same half-assed way as Texas, this doesn't matter. But the point is that Mench's value hasn't really been maximized, and a team with a setup like the Brewers can easily leverage his value a lot more efficiently.

And though the argument that Cruz could have done close to the same at a cheaper price is somewhat compelling, if the Brewers haven't used Cruz on the big league club thus far then it's pretty reasonable to deduce that their scouting opinion of him isn't very high. Given that his issue is supposed to be breaking balls, I don't think it would be a surprise to discover that players breaking out in their mid-20's who don't hit the curve won't contribute much in the majors, and if the Brewers have done research to confirm that, this all looks pretty reasonable. Moreover, a team like Milwaukee isn't very long on options for improving the club in the short term; if the market for Carlos Lee will ostensibly be more than 4/48, paying $4m to Mench in 2007 to be not much more than a win better than Cruz is not as inefficient as it would otherwise seem. The Brewers only have a finite number of positions they can reasonably upgrade in the offseason, and I'm getting the hunch or impression that the free agent market will be pretty brutal this offseason.

Don't get me started on the "Cordero is very hot right now" claims, which aren't meaningful and certainly aren't necessary for anyone willing to look at his numbers beyond the ERA.

Whether Milwaukee could have gotten a better package for Lee is of course debatable, but it's not like anything the Brewers did only helps them for this year. Ned Colletti's irrational discards notwithstanding, I don't know that there really are a lot of top prospects being readily wagered by GMs on deadline deals, and once you get beyond the level of top prospects, you're looking at players where you should be happy to end up with a Kevin Mench.

Gloves

Often when I read something about a player's 'glove' - like that Alex Gonzalez's glove has been as spectacular expected - I hope that they really mean the physical glove.

"Yeah, that one's a real beauty. A credit to Mizuno."
"Spectacular stitching, very firm. Just marvelous."

Sorry, Dodgers Fans

The Aybar deal is just awful, as far as I'm concerned. Given the current trade market, one would think the Dodgers could get something of value for Baez. Since the LA Times reports that the Dodgers are still paying Baez' salary, that means that the trade was no better than cutting him. So the only way that trading Baez helps is if you feel that Betemit is better than Aybar, and I just can't see how that's the case. Aybar is three years younger and having a season with the bat that's only a couple runs off of Betemit's pace. Betemit's 'power' is trumpeted as a big deal, but of course Aybar at a younger age has an above average ISO at the major league level and was slugging in AAA. Betemit has a slightly better projection for this year and the next, but by the time Aybar is 25-27 he's the better hitter. Of course, nothing's certain with young players, but it's not like Betemit has 'proven himself at the major league level' or anything like that, with only 294 more major league plate appearances, and Aybar has had the better numbers in the majors.

So the Dodgers give up 5+ years of Aybar, his 24-28 years, for 4+ years of Betemit at 26-29. From a talent standpoint, this trade just doesn't make sense. But what's depressing about it is that I feel that I'm correct in speculating why the Dodgers decided to act like Betemit is the better player. Betemit hits for a better batting average and hasn't been committing errors in Dodger Stadium. That's pretty much it. In the case of the former, I don't mean that the two are equal except that Betemit has the better H/AB; I mean that, of these two who are not meaningfully separated in offensive value, Betemit accomplishes the same value with more hits and fewer walks, while Aybar does the reverse. In the case of the latter, if you're going to condemn a young player on the basis of a handful of errors - let's say this player has 9 errors in 510 major league innings - it's pretty odd to be acquiring a player with 18 errors in 1060 major league innings, right? Now, while there are plenty of reasons that explain why Betemit's error total is not as bad as that side by side comparison looks, that's beside the point since nobody should be basing their evaluation of a player's defense on a handful of errors in the first place. The point is that it's not uncommon for young players to struggle with errors when they reach the major leagues, and it's particularly Freudian of the Dodgers to acquire a player who last year had roughly the same issues (though they likely weren't as publicized and pathologized). And I really don't buy that Betemit is a significantly better defender. All accounts that I recall had Aybar as a terrific fielder throughout his minor league career, and I don't think that anything has changed so much as people have revised past accounts now that they've chosen to overvalue one kind of evidence.

The other knock on Aybar is that he doesn't 'profile' at any position, being not quite defender-ish enough at 2B but not enough of a power hitter to play 3B. This is nonsense. If he is a terrible fielder at 2B, then that's one thing, but if he's merely below average there that's not a big deal since his bat more than covers that. And while not having too much power at the hot corner means he'll never get Tracy Ringolsby's hall of fame vote, it doesn't actually mean he's a bad player. The Red Sox didn't cry about Boggs, nor have they been crying too much about Kevin Youkilis, and they even moved him to first (disclaimer: I'm not arguing that Aybar is as good as Youkilis, but the similarities should be obvious). While average third basemen hit above league average, it's not by that much. And Aybar is, of course, hitting for pretty good power this season. While on the flip side, Betemit is not an actual power hitter, and I imagine that most people who look at more than 200 at bats in evaluating a player would recognize that.

It's very similar to the way Dioner Navarro was excommunicated from the organization: taking 20 games in the field to be a representative sample of defense, undervaluing a prospect because of unimpressive raw numbers in the minor leagues despite very aggressive promotion, and selling a young player at a relatively low value for an older player currently overperforming. As far as I can tell, this fails almost every benchmark for a good trade:

• the Dodgers traded the younger of two comparable players
• the Dodgers traded the slumping player
• the Dodgers acquired a player whose value has been inflated with a small sample and trade-deadline buzz
  
• the Dodgers didn't save any money
• the Dodgers made a challenge trade with the Braves, the organization that arguably has Baseball's most impressive track record in choosing which talent to discard in trades
  

And all of that is before you take into account that the Dodgers gave up Baez - who had at least some value on the trade market - and paid his salary to make the deal happen. The 'Tomko was coming off the DL, needed the roster spot' argument is not compelling as long as Joe Beimel is on the roster (and if Tomko is to be used out of the pen, really doesn't make much sense, given that he's not, you know, actually better than Baez).

The point isn't that this move destroys the franchise, the point is that Colletti has now firmly established his modus operandi as making a series of moves that marginally hurt the team while accruing no tangible advantage, solely on the basis of a poorly-defined concept of a certain time period being more crucial. Part of the process has involved consistently evaluating talent in a way that, from my sabermetric viewpoint, looks chronically inaccurate. Of course none of these moves in a series of marginal downgrades is the one that destroys the franchise, but the cumulative value will be to hurt the team. And the consistency with which these moves have continued is enough to make me close to deciding that I can't follow the Dodgers like a fan anymore.

10-Game Package?

Bill Plaschke critiques the Dodgers for possibly having given up on 2006 in his column today. Plaschke writes:

This is fine in theory, but one man's "short run" is another man's 10-game ticket package. And as long as those tickets say "2006," shouldn't that still be the Dodgers' focus?

Putting aside the question of whether the Dodgers are selling, should sell, et cetera, I find this line of reasoning pretty dubious. The Dodgers are probably about a .500 team. If they acquired Carlos Lee and had him replace Kenny Lofton, or had Greg Maddux replace one of their mediocre pitchers, they would certainly upgrade the position, but we're not talking about making a .500 team a .600 team. Conversely, they've got plenty of good young talent, so short of an unprecedented and highly-infeasible selling off of all of their veteran talent, they're not going to drop to a .400 team. (And I speak of a 'true' .500, .600, .400 team here; a true .500 team could easily have a .400 record over two months.) So we're really talking about the difference between a .550 team and .450 team even at the most extreme levels short of straining all plausibility.

In other words, our hypothetical 10-game ticket package holder can already expect 5 wins and 4 losses (due to home-field advantage). What is in question is the likelihood of the Dodgers winning the 10th.

So while I don't disagree that spending resources on wins in a season where the playoffs are out of the question is still worthwhile, the general way to improve your team with deadline deals is to trade older players for younger talent. Certainly, sometimes you can get a good piece cheap if the piece you need is undervalued, or if your need is at a position where all the other contenders are set, or if there's an over-motivated seller. But the Dodgers have major financial commitments to four position players and are committed to Russ Martin and Andre Ethier. That means they can only plausibly upgrade third base, center field, or their pitching. I can't think of any meaningful 3B or CF on the market; they already have players who aren't far below average availble at each position. So they could acquire a corner outfielder and awkwardly slot Drew or whomever they acquire in at CF, or they can trade for a pitcher. When the biggest 'impacts' ostensibly available are Lee, Soriano, and Maddux, we are talking about taking on players who in each case are not worth their current salaries, much less what it would take to re-sign them. Beyond that, none of those are, at this point in their careers, worthy of the label 'star.' We are truly talking about an upgrade of less than a win in each case, and the asking price for each - besides Maddux, I would imagine - is ridiculously out of proportion to their value.

So while it's certainly true that the Dodgers would be legitimately crazy to give up on the season and make moves that hurt the team, that has nothing to do with demanding that a trade for a good major leaguer be made. The best strategy for acquiring major league talent in July, outside of somehow convincing trading partners that your minor league shwag is actually futurestar, is to trade your overvalued major leaguers to teams with specific needs and surplus major league talent. Back in the day, DePodesta managed to do just that but received no credit from Plaschke and his ilk, generating the oft-repeated "he just handed a World Series repeat to Florida" (though, as far as I can recall, that was not Plaschke's particular retort).

And the rub is that DePo did that at a time where there weren't any significant reinforcements at AAA. Now Colletti has more leverage and flexibility. If Colletti made the move that is, to me, obvious, to trade Nomar Garciaparra for a solid starter and change, Plaschke would likely rip him unequivocally.

Broussard Deal

I'm lovin' this trade, because it's the first time I can recall one team acquiring both halves of another team's platoon in two trades within a month of each other. The Mariners now plug Cleveland's first base platoon in at DH.

What's more is that Cleveland's haul is pretty similar this time, even though Broussard is a more valuable player than Perez. But this is a very logical deal, since Cleveland has Garko and a mess of similar collegiate first base prospects, none of whom are particularly impressive. Garko is good, but doesn't look like an actual star. Still, that describes Broussard, and Garko is the cheaper option on the better side of the age curve. On the other side, Seattle probably doesn't have an awful lot of use for Choo with Ichiro, Reed, Snelling, Balentien, and Jones all around. Seattle deciding to make a push for the division is fair, and Carl Everett was predictably a major impediment, so upgrading to the average production they can get from Broussard is pretty meaningful.

That being said, I don't think Broussard is really fair value for Choo, who projects as an average or better player, while Broussard will be a little below average as a 1B/DH over the 2.3 seasons they'll get him at arbitration prices. And though Broussard is obviously having the better season of the two so far, I'm getting a projection for Broussard that only amounts to a few runs better than Choo over the remainder of the season. Given that they're both lefty bats, I'm not sure that there's a point to this deal outside of the PR angle. If the idea is that using Choo at DH for two months would hurt his development in the field, then that's foolhardy on a few different levels. More likely, the Mariners are just using baseball's time-honored season epistemology, where a player's performance during the current (or, in the offseason, previous) season is afforded a level of Truth far out of proportion with the actual size of the data sample. With Broussard's 2006 $H well above his previously-established levels, it shouldn't be hard to see the flaw in that methodology.

So the glib analysis is that the Mariners panicked - rather than just coolly shoving Everett aside - and Cleveland benefitted. But if I were to be glib, I'd give in to the temptation to speculate whether Choo's the kind of player Seattle would destine itself to trade for not much anyway, and also to speculate that Cleveland has a habit of acquiring middling young talent and surrounding it with mediocre has-beens, outside of the Bartolo Colon deal anyway. Neither charge is warranted, but both would be more fun. But I'll leave that approach to the people getting paid to write.

Perez, Johnson, Pimentel to Kansas City

Excellent deal by Dayton Moore and the Royals today. Dessens is a pretty marginal pitcher, and Perez is much more likely to be a significant contributor. Paying $7m for a season and a half of Perez (if the $8m cash figure CBS Sportsline is reporting is correct) is a flyer worth taking, given that he's been an above average pitcher for years and his current season's awful numbers are mostly from balls in play over a small sample. And truthfully, shelling out another $7.5m to pick up the 2008 option might look like a wise move a year from now. After all, it was only 20 months ago that Paul DePodesta's Derek Lowe signing was being widely ridiculed while the Perez signing was looked at as a necessary move. Fans, at least, have taken to wildly revisionist history on those perceptions, although I do remember one guy who was a voice of mild dissent.

I know many observers think Perez is 'done,' and some offer popsych reasons or faux scouting. Can we please take the Pepsi challenge on this one? 'Scouting' someone once you've already made up your mind on his performance is pretty difficult, I'd imagine, for even the most competent scouts. Can we get the detractors who are 'sure' of Perez's decline being an issue of the current state of his talent (as opposed to simply being the perception we can garner from his results) to give a year-blind video analysis, showing significant differences in his location, velocity, delivery, mechanics, whatever they think it is? And can they then on top of that proffer a plausible explanation for why the change is irreversible and he can't return to his established performance level of 2002-2005? I am somehow tempted to blame Baseball Prospectus for all of this, since they've been pushing so hard on their "beer AND tacos" marketing idea. While scouting information is vital to any baseball operation, ex post facto scouting is ridiculous; using the stats to evaluate a player and then the scouting to analyze (or justify) that performance shows a profound misunderstanding of the nature of baseball statistics. Of course, there's no way this is BP's fault, since the same stuff has been going on for as long as baseball statistics have been kept. But they have, perhaps, been at the vanguard of adding saber-credibility to fundamentally confused methodologies. I think. Scouting information and statistical records are too different types of data, and the comparison of the two that goes into player evaluation would very logically suffer from the cross-fertilization of the data streams. Of course, this is likely the status quo for all or most scouting, but one would hope that saberminded fans could get past it.

That's not to say that Perez isn't 'done,' but it is to say that I don't buy any of the BS reasons to believe so. Perez might be 'done,' but the results of 8 starts and 12 relief appearances aren't nearly enough data to determine that he's just lost his former ability. And while I would tend to agree that might be a sufficient sample to make a legitimate scouting-based judgment on whether he can't cut it any more, I have no confidence that that's really what the Dodgers or their fans have done.

And Kansas City is just the place for Perez, since they've got no meaningful alternatives for playing time, so he can easily keep playing until he's back on track, if getting back on track is truly something he needs to do. Given that KC ownership seems to insist upon spending much of the budget on the major league team, it's hard too argue that Perez at this price isn't a better value than anything the Royals can pull down in the free agent market. And while spending on player development might in general be a wiser use of the Royals money, they can't really only do that, lest they continue to be such a bad club that they need to pay an insane premium to acquire free agent talent.

So the Royals get Perez at a fair enough price, and all they had to do was to trade an okay reliever in his 30's for a pitcher who will surely crack their organizational top 10 lists in the offseason and another decent young arm. Very good move.

I don't even know that it's appropriate to discuss this trade from the Dodgers' point of view. Apparently Colletti, deciding that the struggling and unhappy Perez wouldn't work any longer in Dodger Blue, decided to replace him with Mark Hendrickson (whose own performance earlier this season may have affected unjustified change in his scouting reports). So he traded lefty starter Perez for lefty starter Hendrickson, straight up. To help the pen, he traded right-handed swingman Jae Seo for right-handed swingman Elmer Dessens (who is oddly and hopelessly trumpeted in the Dodgers' press release for lefties' batting average against). While both are certainly debatable, talent-wise, the need to make the moves is at least understandable, though perhaps faulty from a value-maximizing standpoint. And it does save a bit over a million this season, and figures to save five or six million in salary next season as well as Perez's option buyout in 2008.

Not content with that, though, he decided to pick up back-up catcher Toby Hall, who's salary cancels out the savings for 2006. In exchange, he only had to give up backup Sandy Alomar and Julio Pimentel. I don't really understand the wisdom of giving away a C-grade prospect for a small upgrade at the backup backstop, but it's not terrible. Still, Pimentel is striking out more than a hitter per inning in high-A while only 20, and isn't exactly without value.

The trade he made that really bugs me, though, was to pick up BJ LaMura, a decent arm who is probably too old to figure to have great value. For LaMura, Colletti gave up $7 million - about the amount he'd netted on the above salary swaps - along with two very good prospects in Dioner Navarro and Blake Johnson and a player to be named later. Navarro's very young and figures to be an above average bat at the plate for years to come at basement prices, and his defensive struggles were likely temporary. Blake Johnson was a 2nd round pick in 2004 who has just turned 21 and looks deserving of a promotion to AA in 2007; while his ERA is near five, he's got 73 K against only 19 walks, and in the offensive environment at Vero Beach his relatively disappointing ERA and HR rate aren't much of a negative. It's hard to imagine that the scouts have really soured on Johnson just because the extra longballs and the mild K decrease moving from the SAL to the FSL, and the improvement in his BB rate is encouraging. The PTBNL turned out to be Justin Ruggiano, who probably projects as a decent backup in the majors with a shot at a higher 'upside.' While all the other trades Colletti made seemed questionable but reasonable, this one is the real headscratcher, and I really can't fathom it.

LaMura-Almoar Trade

Good move by the Dodgers today, giving up a player with essentially no value to them in order to get something on the active roster that they desperately needed - a RHB outfielder. I would have approved of cutting Alomar, more or less, because any of the now six outfielders on the roster are better hitters and running two LHB out at the corners against southpaws is wrongheaded and truly irritating. Elizabeth Aguilar's MLB.com story states that Alomar "turned into a backup catcher with the arrival of Russell Martin," which is historically inaccurate in at least two obvious ways.

Of course, one can't really go overboard on this, because it's a sad reminder of the woeful and frankly unjustifiable Dioner Navarro trade. It certainly is a 'win' in the sense that it helps the team on the field and also adds a player with some value. LaMura's great K numbers and 2006 ERA are enticing, no doubt, but he walks a lot of cats and it's not that difficult to K 9+ per as a reliever in the Southern League. He's too old for the term 'prospect,' and he's now spent a full two years at Birmingham. Still, it's something for nothing, and would have been such even if Navarro were 2nd on the roster instead of Hall.

Overwhelming Stats

Yikes.

"We hope a big one," said Giants general manager Brian Sabean of Hillenbrand's expected impact on the club. "There's an overwhelming stat that I wasn't aware of until a week ago -- when we score four or more runs, we're a good team, and we need to do that in this ballpark.

Accardo for Hillenbrand and Chulk is a pretty fair deal, and it helps both teams; given the Giants' position in the race, paying $2m and change for the ~10-15 run improvement they can expect from the upgrade over Niekro is just fine, and the downgrade in the bullpen isn't a big deal. But for Pete's Sake, Sabean considers it an overwhelming stat that he has a "good team" when they score four or more runs? And until a week ago, he didn't realize that scoring more than four runs is a strong indicator of success?

What's the Giants' distribution of runs and wins? The stat Sabean refers to would show the Giants at 9-31 (.225) when scoring fewer than 4 and 41-16 (.719) when scoring 4 or more. Here's the numbers beyond that dichotomy:

Runs    Record   %
0-3     9-31   .225
4       4-7    .364
5       6-4    .600
6       11-2   .846
7+      20-3   .870

I can't think of anything remarkable about that distribution for a team that allows 4.68 runs per game. They tend to win when they score more than they allow on average, and they tend to do poorly when not scoring much. You might expect a little more symmetry, but the Giants have outscored their opponents by seven runs and the deviation is miles from extraordinary given the sample size. And it is odd that Sabean would refer to their record scoring four runs or more when for just pennies more he could have boasted their .804 winning percentage when scoring five or more.

I'm not disturbed by the trade, nor am I disturbed that Sabean knows the teams' record with 4 or more runs. I'm merely disturbed by the following apparent implications of the quote:

• that someone was responsible for providing this information to Sabean and didn't make any effort to explain to Sabean why this was without import
• that Sabean was overwhelmed by a figure which could be completely explained literally by elementary arithmetic
• that - unless the author took these quotations out of their contexts by grouping different parts of the interview into one paragraph - the Giants' record when scoring four plus runs was offered as a unique justification for upgrading at a position where they've got no talent.

On the bright side - for the Giants, anyway - Sabean's approach to numbers only made him look foolish (and perhaps just to me) in an article, instead of causing him to do something like give a ton of PA to Neifi again.

2007 Dodgers

I consider myself unwise for this, but I'm willing to accept it as a quirk. I think James Loney is ready to be a quality major league first baseman.

His AAA numbers are great, but they don't have nearly as much to do with his true talent level as I want to believe, I tell myself. You can't simply exclude previous seasons in projecting him, even with the injury disclaimers. You can't simply exclude his terrible big league performance in April. You have to heavily regress his batting average. His numbers really aren't that good looking, considering the context. Joe Thurston, Joe Thurston, Joe Thurston: same age, same park and league, lefty, same underwhelming track record.

Whatever. I feel like being a fan today, and fans sometimes have to take things on faith, sometimes have to believe that the scouts are on top of it.

Get one thing straight, though: dude really shouldn't be playing against southpaws at the major league level. Left-handed hitters are not more complete players on the basis of playing against southpaws. The notion that Loney should be hitting against southpaws because he might someday learn how to beat up on them is pretty ridiculous.

And you know what? Hell, I'll go in for the "LaRoche will be ready for 2007" stuff, too. Loney and LaRoche at the corners. Kent and Furcal are already signed for the middle, and Martin's the catcher. In the outfield, I'll give the benefit of the doubt to Ethier, and if whispers about Drew concealing an injury now are true, then he probably won't have a strong enough second half to propel him to opt out of the contract in November.

That pretty much leaves centerfield, where Jason Repko can get it done. I don't say that because he was great in April, or because he's had a good week in AAA. I say that simply because he seems an average fielder at a position with low offensive demand and his offensive projection comes in at about average for a CF. Re-sign Jose Cruz, and he can take about 20% of the playing time at center while serving as Ethier's platoon partner. Delwyn Young or someone like him can be Drew's platoon buddy in right (or, more likely, Cruz handles that while Young takes LF against LHP). Alternatively, Werth could be back in action, and handle either the Young or Cruz role (or, if things go really well, the Repko role). If Kemp tears up AAA, he's an option for any of these roles, and is gravy.

Willy Aybar can be the infield injury fill-in and supersub, playing every fifth day at third, and every fifth day at second, and then either Aybar or Kent can play first against southpaws. That, or they can keep Saenz. With Saenz, Aybar can start at third until someone goes down, at which point LaRoche would take over. Throw in a backup catcher and a utility infielder. That's the offense.

That's a cheap offense which requires only spending a couple mil on Cruz. Well, it's not exactly cheap with Kent, Furcal, Drew, and the sunk Mueller cost, but it's as cheap as can be given that they're guaranteed. No position looks to be really below average; we would expect one or two of the youngsters to end up below average (Ethier, Loney, LaRoche, Repko, Martin), but there's no reason to bet on any of them individually being the weak link.

The rotation's got Penny, Lowe, and one can assume Billingsley. Tomko is signed on, and let's call him the swing man. So what's left is two rotation spots and several arms in the bullpen beyond Broxton and Saito. The offense listed above costs about $54m, including Mueller and Izturis (who, if no one wants him, could be the utility guy). Penny, Lowe, and Tomko run $22m, and Perez is on the books for ten. So that leaves less than $20m in the budget, probably.

Now... why in the world would anyone throw half of that at Garciaparra? Granted, free agent pitchers are a terrible deal. Granted, it's extremely difficult to get a very good pitcher in a trade. But come on. Nomar is having one of his best seasons ever, at age 32, with a long injury history, and we're talking about a half season's sample. He's not the superstar folks want to believe he is, not at first base, anyway. A Loney/Saenz or Loney/Kent/Aybar platoon should be within a win of what Garciaparra can do, and the difference in cost will probably be about ten mil. Even with the going rate for pitchers somehow being four or five mil per win above replacement, one would think that if Colletti's only offseason tasks are a) to try to recoup some costs on Odalis Perez, b) try to extract value for Izturis, and c) to leverage the remaining money into as good a pitching staff as possible, you'd think he could manage to do c) somewhat competently. There are several legitimately good free agent pitchers this offseason, and though the price for any of them will be heavily inflated, Garciaparra's price will likely be as inflated and the Dodgers have an alternative that requires no spending. And even longer term, though long deals for pitchers are a bad risk, a long deal for Garciaparra is pretty much equally poor.

So why not trade Garciaparra now? He's at his peak value, and if kept could only yield a couple of draft picks (and since, if I recall correctly, the crazy Elias rankings to determine class A/B/C free agents is based on two-year counting stats, Garciaparra might only be a type B free agent - though this may be way off). The Dodgers are under .500 and though the defecit they face isn't close to insurmountable and they probably are, at the moment, a better team than any of their NL West competition, it's still not exactly easy to crawl back into the race. And Garciaparra is probably renowned enough that he could be exchanged for a piece that will help now and be useful next season. The difference between Garciaparra and Loney over two months doesn't figure to be much more than a win. Given how great Loney is doing in AAA, I would be quite surprised if Colletti didn't think he could sell this deal PR-wise. Well, assuming he actually gets something of value for Nomar.

Come to think of it, he might be able to sell it from a PR perspective better if he got something back of no value, but that's a different isssue altogether.

Then again, I don't think this will ever happen. Whatever.

Kendall - Most Upgradeable?

Here's part of an email I sent earlier to THT's Bryan Tsao regarding his article today, "Contending Holes: American League." It's a great concept for an article, done in a format I don't recall having seen before. Instead of going around the rumor mill and looking at which contending teams were looking to upgrade on which players, Tsao just asked the simple question of which positions left the most room for improvement. I found this a refreshing take, and I thought the choices were about right.

I did, however, find some nits that I picked for irrational reasons beyond my comprehension. The nit in question was Jason Kendall's batting average on balls in play, a subject that I think I was more acutely aware of because I wrote a probably ill-advised advocacy of Los Angeles trading for him after the 2004 season, back before I really knew what I was doing, IMO. Anyway, here's what I wrote to Bryan:

I have to take issue with something you wrote in today's article, since it
just looks very sloppy. In your capsule on Jason Kendall, you write that
"Even his strong 2004 season is marred by a flukishly high batting average
on balls in play, meaning that he was probably hit lucky that year." While
certainly a .337 BABIP will often appear flukish, in Kendall's case that's
far from accurate. Kendall had HIGHER BABIPs in 1998-2000 and 2003, and
his lesser numbers in 2001-2002 can likely be chalked up to his
well-documented injury struggles. Even including his first two seasons and
the injury-riddled years, his career BABIP coming into Oakland was .322.

While you are correct that his batted ball data has been essentially the
same in 2005 and 2006, it was also the same in 2003 and 2004. Indeed, it
is interesting that you mention in Sexson's capsule that he is strongly
underperforming his PrOPS when Kendall (and Crosby as well) is a couple
spots behind him on the same list. (Edit: I'm not sure what I meant by
"interesting" here; I guess I just meant to imply that the article would
have benefited from more consistency in looking at batted ball numbers.)

And furthermore, I don't think it's very useful to compare Kendall to the
AL average catcher through four months of the season. While generally
comparison to league average at a position is useful, using this small of
a sample reduces its effect to a novelty. The AL has what could even be an
historic consolidation of offensive talent at catcher right now, and we're
only looking at 60% of a season's production from a position that likely
tends to decline in later months (speculation on my part, I haven't
researched that). In any event, while I generally prefer average as a
baseline, that's in part because the relation between average and
replacement stays relatively constant; using the current AL half season
numbers aborts that relationship.

Now, I don't mean to imply that Kendall is a savior or anything, but he
is, IMO, precisely the kind of player where a desperate trade to upgrade
will accomplish roughly nothing. The only obvious 'upgrades' who may be on
the market - Michael Barrett, Ramon Hernandez, Damian Miller - aren't
really significantly better than Kendall, they're just having better
seasons; in any event, none of them could be acquired for something with
less value than the less than 1 win improvement they would cause.

What is great about the Shea Hillenbrand faux-disaster is that Hillenbrand is precisely the kind of player who probably doesn't understand his true value, and happens to be playing for the kind of team who actually does understand his value.

Hillenbrand generally sports a relatively empty .300ish batting average, drawing few walks and hitting only for average power. By most accounts and metrics, his defense at third base was (is?) fairly crummy, and those numbers aren't very valuable as a first baseman. However, Hillenbrand is a great player to have on a roster (assuming he were paid commensurate to his value), since he can serve as an excellent platoon partner for a lefty first baseman, a pinch hitter against southpaws, and occasionally a pinch hitter against RHP in situations where singles have a relatively high leverage and walks (or home runs) are not at a premium. Beyond that, he's a serviceable backup at the corners.

That's a nice piece to have around, but in an optimal situation will only be used for about 250 PA a season. A player like Hillenbrand who is very well suited in that role could reasonably be worth $2m-$3m, but just isn't worth the nearly $6m he's pulling down. And that appears to have created a problem beyond the monetary for the Blue Jays, who are not only overpaying him but have apparently been overplaying him. Hillenbrand has gotten plenty of starts as DH against RHP when Eric Hinske was a much better bet.

But the delicious part of the story is that Hillenbrand probably doesn't at all comprehend why both I and likely Ricciardi et al find him to be a more marginal asset; after all, he is a .300 hitter and 'proven run producer.' In the Toronto Sun story linked above, a Blue Jay is quoted as saying "He was a cancer in this clubhouse ... Shea's day went the way the lineup card went. If he was in the lineup, everything was fine. If he wasn't he'd sulk." So Shea has ostensibly run himself off of the club by not understanding that he's a role player, and has reason to feel that way within the general framework of conventional baseball wisdom.

Whether clubhouse 'chemistry' makes a difference in team performance, I couldn't really say, though I would be surprised to find that 'chemistry' has any major effects outside of perhaps some obvious cases where players quit en masse because of a disastrous season. However, that doesn't mean that clubhouse chemistry doesn't matter; firstly, people still have to live with each other on a baseball team, and not every decision a GM makes has to be on the basis of wins, losses, or profits. Secondly, while likely having a very marginal effect, one would imagine that happy clubhouses increase the perceived value of a franchise when a player decides to sign there or waive a no-trade clause, etc.

In this case, just cutting Hillenbrand would cost the Jays a win or two. It would basically redistribute the 80 PA or so he would have against LHP back to Hinske and Overbay and Catalanotto, none of whom should really be batting against southpaws (though in any given game, one would be called upon to do so even if Hillenbrand were starting, provided one of the catchers isn't slotted in at DH). Off the top of my head, that's a downgrade from a +15 hitter over 600 PA against LHP to a -15 hitter, or a difference of one run every 20 PA. Beyond that, it would also cost a few runs by essentially creating some PA for Jason Phillips and also by having Eric Hinske play the field, who is probably worse with the glove than Hillenbrand. All in all, just ditching him is no big deal.

However, Hillenbrand is eminently dealable, and teams like the Padres, Giants, Angels, and Reds would all have obvious uses for him. Provided that the Jays don't need to pick up any of Hillenbrand's salary, they really don't need more than a fringe prospect for this to be worthwhile. Given that they'll actually likely come out with something more valuable than the extra win or so Hillenbrand could contribute while saving the $2m still owed him this year, this blow-up may inadvertently be a major coup for the Jays.

(I have no idea what Eddy Martinez-Esteve's current injury situation is, but wouldn't Hillenbrand for him be a tremendously satisfying move on some level?)

Of course, on the other hand, it may have been reasonable to expect the Jays to trade Hillenbrand anyway, since he was the kind of acquisition it made sense to keep around as injury insurance for the season but who was a prime candidate to be flipped when a bigger need came along (as was apparently the case when the Jays tried to deal him for Adam Kennedy). Then again, given the 'win now' PR approach the Jays are ensconced in, this may have created the opportunity to snag a good prospect that the Jays' front office couldn't have gotten away with otherwise.