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DETROIT TIGERS Team Audit | DT Cards | PECOTA Cards | Depth Chart |
Designated C-R Dusty Ryan for assignment. [12/16]
An interesting development, because he might slip through waivers because of a market flooded with generally adequate right-handed-hitting catchers. There again, the general adequacy might be what inspires somebody to grab one set to make right around the major-league minimum.
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KANSAS CITY ROYALS Team Audit | DT Cards | PECOTA Cards | Depth Chart |
Signed RHP Philip Humber and OF-L Shane Costa to minor-league contracts. [12/15]
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SEATTLE MARINERS Team Audit | DT Cards | PECOTA Cards | Depth Chart |
Acquired OF-S Milton Bradley from the Cubs for RHP Carlos Silva and $6 million; re-signed OF-L Ryan Langerhans to a one-year $525,000 contract. [12/18]
Seattle’s paying $27 million for right to employ Milton Bradley for two years and to delete one of Bill Bavasi’s bigger mistakes… and it seems like a good idea. Really? Well, of course. First, they were already stuck for $25 million over the next two years with Silva, a pitcher the surgeon general had already recommended they avoid lest they strike team bean-counters and the odd over-50 fan dead from apoplexy. That was guaranteed dead space on the budget, money spent on a pitcher who would do nothing to advance the team any closer to the postseason, and nothing was the optimal possible outcome, whether that was having him on the DL, cutting him and hoping to recoup the major-league minimum if anyone claimed him-a big if-or if they sent him to Alpah Centauri as a goodwill ambassador for the Major League Baseball. Anything but letting him actually pitch, because that risked moving them in the wrong direction.
So put that way, they’re getting Milton Bradley for two years for $2 million dollars, and they’ve repurposed a sink-worthy cost into a worthwhile risk. Bradley isn’t going to repeat his 2008 season with the Rangers-that’s one BABIP that really was certain to regress-but in Seattle, as in Texas, he’s not going to be close to the center of attention and controversy, not when they’ve got Ken Griffey Jr.’s last spin and Ichiro Suzuki around as media magnets, not to mention King Felix, and this brand-spanking-new Cliff Lee over in that corner. Also, it’s perhaps a smaller, subtler thing, but it’s worth remembering how effectively the Mariners’ media-relations team sheltered a younger Griffey, and if there’s a legacy there, maybe that helps Milton be Milton on the diamond instead of in the headlines.
The other advantage to adding him to the Mariners given their current roster construction is that he’s joining a team that doesn’t have a set DH. I know, they have Griffey, but Griffey’s not going to play every day, and you can expect the graying Kid will get a few starts in left field. If he’s rotating between left and DH, can they get 110 lineup starts from him, or 140? Already tasked with the difficult responsibility of managing Milton, we’ll see if Don Wakamatsu strikes the right balance as far as spotting Bradley 50-80 starts at DH, 40-60 times in left, and maybe 10 in right if Ichiro doesn’t resume his run of 160-game seasons. Or maybe Bradley’s only here 40 games before he gets hurt. Or clashes with teammates and management and is gone by July-if you already think in terms of how the roster spot was wasted with Silva, and Bradley makes enough of a nuisance of himself, it’s an outcome you can’t rule out altogether. Like the nuclear option, you just hope it doesn’t come up, but the challenge for Jack Zduriencik and Wakamatsu will be proactive and see if there’s any way to set Bradley at ease in his new circumstance, so that resorting to it never gets as close as it did in Wrigleyville.
Finally, we can turn to the truly happy and perhaps fantastic concept of what Bradley can do for a lineup. Because all the other stuff really does seem to get in the way of employing Bradley, it’s not a stretch to call it fantasy, but it’s one worth indulging. Bradley’s walk rate shouldn’t wobble too far from the 12-15 percent mark he’s managed the last four years, and for a Mariners lineup that ranked last in the AL in walks, that’s manna from heaven. Combined with switch-hitting and some power, that should provide a Mariners lineup with some help. The question is: how much power? As noted, he isn’t going to repeat that .388 BABIP from Texas, and it takes a lot of faith in the powers of a happy Milton to think he’ll get his ISO back up around .240, his clip from 2007-08. Still, morale’s an issue we can’t wish away, so while almost every other player in baseball wouldn’t be the sort of player you’d assert is going to improve moving from the weaker league to Safeco, Bradley might be. Say he matches his career rate of .170, plus an OBP somewhere in the .370s, and that’s a pretty serious offensive asset, before we even get into the M’s absolute need.
The nagging question that so many are always ready to ask about Milton Bradley, though, is this: Could he do more? That’s the wonderful thing about wishing upon Milton Bradley-as much as we’re now all very familiar with the negative, sometimes he surprises you to the good. Then again, could he do less? Of course, he has, and it’s almost certain that someday he will again. Only one team, Texas, has ever seen Milton Bradley leave and think fondly of him as he departed. But for $2 million to find out, while adapting a sunk cost to the adventure, the Mariners have created the possibility that they might just end up with enough offense to win the division. More will help, of course-they might still pursue Jason Bay and reduce Griffey to Designated Cheerleader, and they still need to get a first baseman. But as a way of creating hope from a roster spot and an expense where none existed, this is one bit of craziness well worth risking.
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TAMPA BAY RAYS Team Audit | DT Cards | PECOTA Cards | Depth Chart |
Signed RHPs Winston Abreu, Jeff Bennett, Joe Bateman, and Richard De Los Santos, LHPs R.J. Swindle, Jason Cromer, and Carlos Hernandez, and 1B–L Chris Richard to minor-league contracts. [12/14]
Signed INF-R Joe Dillon and 1B–R Ryan Shealy to minor-league contracts. [12/18]
There are a couple of semi-amusing things here, in a minor key. For those among us still harboring hopes for Ryan Shealy turning into something more than a first-base platoon’s short side, I’m sure you’re going
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TEXAS RANGERS Team Audit | DT Cards | PECOTA Cards | Depth Chart |
Signed RHP Geoff Geary and MI-S Ray Olmedo to minor-league contracts; outrighted UT-R Esteban German and LHP Clay Rapada to Oklahoma City (Triple-A). [12/16]
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CHICAGO CUBS Team Audit | DT Cards | PECOTA Cards | Depth Chart |
Acquired RHP Carlos Silva and $6 million from the Mariners for OF-S Milton Bradley. [12/18]
So, we all knew that Milton Bradley was going to be an ex-Cub, and everyone knew that we all knew it, and knowing that, nobody who knew much about anything was going to give anything up to get him, which Jim Hendry knew. Or found out, because, let’s face it, he’s not telepathic. So he wound up making a turkey swap, ditching one regret for another, and instead of winding up achieving any of the innumerable rumors involving the Rays for Pat Burrell, or the Rangers for a pan of brownies and a hug, he went with the most easily convertible currency possible: pitching.
Whatever Silva’s for, if healthy, he’s no prize. The contract’s no cause for joy, even with a $6 million payoff to help defray the expense: $25 million, spread out as $11.5 million for 2010 and again in 2011, followed by an inevitable $2 million buyout of his 2012 option. Since Bradley was due $21 million, they’ve netted $2 million over the next two years, not much as such things go. The question, did they get anything beyond the $2 million and a re-purposed roster spot? In Silva’s last full season in a rotation back in ’08, his first and last as a Mariners regular, he produced a .396 SNWP, which is merely the worst-ever rotation starter season in Seattle Mariners history for a hurler with 150 IP. Keep in mind what that means: these are the Mariners, an expansion team, once upon a time a paragon of patsydom, and this man was their worst. Admittedly, Silva’s a pitch-to-contact pitcher who probably wasn’t helped much by the Mariners defense the team was at such pains to repair before 2009, but that can’t be a good thing to have.
Even assuming he’s fixable or adds a couple of ticks on his fastball in a bullpen role he’s initially likely to be stranded in, at best we’re still talking about a low-90s guy who doesn’t fool people with it or his changeup; maybe relief work makes it easier for him to rely on his slider, as that’s his best pitch. He’s relatively effective at keeping runners close, so at least he has that going for him, but why play for peanuts when the guy on the mound’s passing out cookies? Oh, and he’s coming to the easier league, although if he’s in the pen, it isn’t like he’s going to get the benefit of facing pitchers. However, it’s worth nothing that there’s a very real chance/threat that he could wind up in the rotation, because there’s plenty of uncertainty in the unit, between Carlos Zambrano‘s decline, the question of whether or what Randy Wells can do for an encore, and the inconsistency of the currently penciled-in occupant of the fifth slot, Tom Gorzelanny. I suppose that’s the double-savior role Silva might fill: making Wrigleyville safe from both the menace of Milton Bradley and the equally demoralizing menace of the odd Jeff Samardzija start.
The new dilemma is what this means for the Cubs’ outfield, but we really sort of already know the answer: Kosuke Fukudome is going to right, which is why the Burrell rumor had about as much leg as Toulouse-Lautrec, and about as much attraction to the Cubs as a Caribbean Cruise with Hawk Harrelson. It seems unlikely that they’d really just run with Sam Fuld as their everyday center fielder, but I supposed it’s possible, in that they’d wind up with a lefty bat and a guy who swipe a few bases, but with negligible power and an OBP that might bounce around .320, turning to Fuld would be like enlisting the lefty doppelganger of the Bobby Dernier experience. This lineup might be able to afford that if Alfonso Soriano and Geovany Soto and Mike Fontenot (in a part-time role) all bounce back, and if Aramis Ramirez gives them a full season. More likely, I expect this means they’re calling Marlon Byrd‘s agent, which won’t really improve matters much, but they just found $6 million, and that just gotta spent somehow, right? Milton who?
So now there’s no more Milton Bradley; no doubt his games will go on, just on different boards. There’s no consolation in having made him go away, and the question as to what they were thinking when, as Joe Sheehan put it last spring, they tried to make Milton do the things he cannot do simultaneously (play outfield, hit, and stay healthy). I don’t think Hendry takes any special pride in learning that the hard, up-close way, even if his gamble that Bradley could be the first player to ever manage a jump from DHing in the American League one year to playing a full season in the outfield in the National.
The Cubs aren’t the first team to have been burned by the Milton Bradley experience, of course. They’re just the ones who spent the most for the rare pleasure of finding out they’re not the right fit for this generation’s Richie Allen. You can blame Hendry for making a mistake in trying to find what wasn’t there in last winter’s market at the point he’d swung into action, and land a premium bat from the left side to stick into the middle of the order; acting earlier to get in on Raul Ibanez wouldn’t have guaranteed a happy result, however, since that still would have forced either the DH-ly Ibanez or the routinely frightening Alfonso Soriano to move to right field. But that option was already off the table in January, and taking that hit on defense, was one already implicit in their trying Bradley. Simply going for Adam Dunn is the big miss of last winter, but it’s worth remembering that Dunn has managed to alienate and annoy his share of people as well. That wouldn’t have helped them with Fukudome’s limitations in center, however, but trying to peg what one decision you could undo to “fix” the Cubs’ current situation and shunt them down the trunk of a much happier decision tree is a fool’s errand; this far down the rabbit hole, these stories usually end with cries of “off with his head!”
So, the Cubs tried something crazy and expensive, and it wound up being crazy and expensive. The disappointment that they achieved in building up their fractious relationship with Bradley and then fracturing it is that, having decided he was a waste of a roster spot, they made absolutely sure of it by trading him for Silva.
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Nice of Jim Hendry, but I really don't see what the Cubs got out of this...
I can't wait for Hendry to shuck out another long term deal for a crappy outfielder in Byrd. Please lord, prove to me you're real and let them have the sense to sign Ankiel for a cheap year instead.
We are probably just days away from Byrd signing for 3/33 and that will be the nail in the coffin for Hendry.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=79458
... and can expect it to be better still with A-Ram healthy, Fukudome in right, and a major league-caliber CF out there.
Thank you, Christina Kahrl - this might be the best $5 a month I've ever spent. (insert standing ovation)
Can players hit well and field at Milton Bradley's age?
Has Milton Bradley shown the ability to hit well while playing in the field?
When Bradley was primarily a DH did he hit better as a DH or as a position player?
There's not really any evidence to support Joe's hypothesis. When it was disproved, you're trying to add additional stipulations to the hypothesis to make it seem like it was correct.
Ironically, the sort of logic that Joe used is on par with the decision making process that got Silva his four year contract. You never look at one season of data and conclusively decide anything from it, in particular when you have other data available.
Excellent. My only problem with this is that it's not a fact. He was available for more games last year than in 2008, and the year he played his most games, he played outfield.
The facts actually support the contention that he is more likely to stay healthy while playing the outfield, if you would be foolish enough to try to tease cause and effect out of one year of him being a DH immediately following ACL surgery.
Providing some actual evidence to support your position instead of arguing about semantics and bitching about BP's supposed groupthink would probably get more people to come around to your point of view.
Moving on, Bradley has shown in multiple seasons that he can be a very good offensive player while playing the field. What Bradley hasn't shown, even in his year as a DH is that he can remain healthy. There's no real evidence that supports the thought that "Bradley hits worse while fielding". In his best offensive season, he hit the best while playing the field. In his second best season, he played the field. Nor is there data to support that his likeliness to be available for games is positively or negatively affected by him playing the field. He was available for more games in 2009 than 2008, despite having to play the field more often.
That is the type of reasoning and data interpretation that BP has built it's reputation on, not this jumping to conclusions that Joe and Christina did in this case.
Move around more, make quick start-and-stop sprints, increase the risk of collision with walls/other outfielders, dive face-first to catch line drives, and then immediately come to bat and swing your arms with enough force to push a 2-pound piece of cork, yarn, and beef over 300 feet with a small bit of tree?
That definitely sounds like a recipe to stay healthy for a guy who has never been able to do it - under ANY circumstances. Reminder: In his "healthy" recent season, he still missed 56 games.
It seems to me that the assertion that you have to "pick 2" with Bradley is based on his 2008 season, where he primarily DHd (though still played 40 games in the outfield) and had an excellent year at the plate. A year, that as Christina points out, where he enjoyed a fluke BABIP. Note, prior to 2008, he only DHd in 10 games.
My argument (I will not speak for TheRealNeal), is that (1) Joe's claim was not well supported when he made it (which would be fine, until it is repeated) and (2) it does not seem that there is enough evidence to support the claim. Point (1) is a lot more important than point (2). I can disagree with a claim (or "fact in this case), that has not been supported. I do not need to disprove the claim.
I feel lot of the criticism is based solely on the fact that someone is disagreeing with Joe. Chris, you claim "Bradley has never been able to do it [stay healthy]- under ANY circumstances". You agree with Joe when he says that Bradley can stay healthy and be a productive hitter if he is not fielding? Is that not a circumstance?
What's your freaking point?
Are you and Neal here to read about baseball, or to try to "win" an imaginary argument against the writers? Joe and Christina have an opinion based on a certain set of data, and you have yours. Why this ridiculous ongoing thrust to be RIGHT?
You made your point, and in some places it's valid, now drop it for Pete's sake!
My own comment wasn't a defense of either "side", simply an attempt to humorously point out that this debate between You, Neal, and (who? Christina certainly hasn't responded beyond the first questions posed...) really seems to be (from an outsider's viewpoint) as an attempt to sound smart by discrediting people that do way, WAY more research on the subject than either you or I do.
Anyway. I enjoy BP and sometimes I disagree. But I don't make a federal case out of it.
- by far my favorite line from BP.com in all of 2009.
I should know the answer to this, but in the event that Silva is hurt and misses substantial parts of the next two years, do the Cubs get a break on his salary from some insurance contract? Is there a financial upside to the team for a lost season due to injury?
990 OPS as DH
790 OPS as OF
Joe and Christina are right about him
Joe said it would have NOTHING to do with his temper or bat ... which was WRONG and Christina was wrong to cite his article as predictive as such ...
"Let's repeat that: Milton Bradley has played in 100 games in the field just twice since becoming a full-time major leaguer. That, and not his temper, is the biggest reason to be wary of how this story ends...
That's why this signing was a mistake. It has nothing to do with Bradley's anger-management issues, ones that have defined his career. It has nothing to do with Bradley's skill set as a hitter"
rly on pitching and defense, regressed from 2008 to 2009. Also, in 2009, for all the pitching and defense the Mariners had, they still had a negative run differential. Does Bradley/Figgins/Lee really change all that? Help it? Yes... but the Angels were +122 and that's a lot to catch up to.
The more interesting point is that "fixing" a defense, a la the Rays in 2008, doesn't necessarily mean it stays fixed--the Rays regressed to the middle of the pack in PADE in 2009. That isn't to strike a cautionary note about the Mariners: Gutierrez and Ichiro in the outfield plus a full year of Jack Wilson at short plus Figgins at third should all equal improvement, not regression, but that only goes towards how little we know about patterns and predictability in fielding performance, let alone what we can discern relying on fielding performance metrics.
As noted, evaluating defense is still a bit of a gray area, where players are lumped into "probably helps", "probably hurts", "everyone else" depending on what three to four different defensive metrics say. Gutierrez and Ichiro were in the outfield last year, both are getting older, and might regress every so slightly. Throw in a 32 year shortstop and a 31 year old third baseman, and the offchance that Beltre resigns, pushing Figgins to second and Lopez to first, and there's a decent chance of defensive regression.
The problem is, this is a team relying on pitching and defense with a real weakness on offense. That's a pretty unstable tripod. Sure they had a great defense last year, but if the defense regresses ala the Rays, then the Mariners will be tip over.
Hey, I'm as happy as anyone that the Mariners have a plan and people in place to put it into motion, but I'm not ready to assert that they're the favorites in the AL West yet. The Angels have had a good team for a long time that keeps defying assertions with an ownership that'll make moves if it sees the need. Meanwhile, the Mariners still need another bat... be it a return of Russell Branyan or some other first baseman masher... because they kind of ran out of position player slots to attempt an upgrade.
In the AL though, they really only have a shot at the AL West and a lesser one at the wild card. In other words, instead of having two ways to reach the playoffs, they really only have one. A lot of things have to break right for the Mariners just so they contend in the AL West, but they don't have the safety cushion of a wild card to fall back to. Is it worth taking on payroll or trading away prospects and/or forfeiting draft picks by signing free agents for a semi-shot?
Fortunately for Cubs fans, they won't have to put up that bozo much longer (he'll be gone by August). But it will take years to re-build the organization - and 2010 is going to be a very, very long one.
Although I can't defend Hendry in creating the stifling roster inflexibility he's dealing with now, he has had the Cubs in the playoffs two out of the last three years, and in decent position for three years out of four. You gotta give him credit for that.
2008 was the aberration for Soto. As for the rest, they're all a year older, a step slower, more susceptible to injury; and expecting improvement from any of them is, as Christina so eloquently puts it, pure wishcasting.
Jim Hendry hasn't found smart, creative solutions for either RF or CF the past 5 years (unless you want to count a half season of Jim Edmonds a couple years ago). You expect he'll pull one out of his hat this time? Good luck with that.
The Cubs are the only big-market team in baseball's weakest division. They're a giant among midgets in market terms. They should be in the playoffs EVERY year. Instead, they've been to the playoffs only 3 times since Hendry took over in 2002; and were swept in the first round twice. The Milwaukee Brewers have won more playoff games the past 6 seasons than the Cubs. Think about that a few minutes. Let the magnitude of that epic fail sink in.
You want to give that moron Hendry credit, fine. But I doubt you'll be so charitable 9 months from now.