Alex Rodriguez, who might as well have the number 252 tattooed on his face a la Mike Tyson, inspired a media circus this week by suggesting he would accept a trade if the Rangers believed it to be in the best interest of the franchise. This was immediately misinterpreted as a request to leave Arlington, and brought out the same yahoos who are going to follow Rodriguez around for the rest of his career, criticizing anything he does short of tossing 225 innings with a 3.10 ERA for the Rangers.
But let’s put aside for a second whether or not it makes sense for the Rangers to make a deal that moves Rodriguez. Let’s similarly put aside any ridiculous, ill-informed tripe that suggests Rodriguez isn’t a team guy, or that “winning obviously wasn’t a priority” when he signed with Texas in 2001. Let’s ignore that the Rangers have done an impressive job of blowing money down the toilet on a number of other players with a heck of a lot less return. And for this exercise, let’s not even admit that the Rangers develop pitchers about as often as TV producers improve a show while it’s “on hiatus.”
I’m rarely as aware of how big a baseball nut as I am in late July. I love the trade deadline, and all the speculation, consternation and evaluation that goes with it. I’ve barely slept all week, spending most of my time with one eye on the television, a second on my computer monitor, and a third…um, my ear…pressed to my cell phone. I look forward to the last few days of the month, anticipating the moves and wondering how they’ll change the look of the races.
Which is what made yesterday such a letdown. The story of the day wasn’t the moves that were made, but the number of teams that sat out the dance. The entire National League East twiddled its thumbs; the Astros and Cardinals avoided adding pitching, which makes the Cubs look more threatening than they should. In the AL Central, the Royals and Twins failed to address their holes, even as the White Sox seem ready to leave them both behind.
Transactions galore: the Yankees practice running in place; the Red Sox beef up their bullpen; the Giants aquire a starter for the postseason; the A’s add a little power to their outfield; and the Reds throw up the white flag, but get some pretty good arms in return. All this and much more news from around the league in your post-Trading Deadline edition of Transaction Analysis.
It’s the last day before the trading deadline, when teams can tilt the world if they’re willing to pay the price, affecting their fortunes for years to come, and no one’s paying attention. My hometown team just lost its brittle shortstop to injury again, and Billy Beane just pulled out a deal to help his team bridge the three-game gap to the division lead. Boston and New York are fighting out a close race in the AL East. In the Central, the White Sox have armed themselves to try and catch the Twins. The National League has a three-way contest in the Central and a secondary race for the wild card spot that includes the Florida Freaking Marlins and a Diamondbacks team that managed to stay in the race while coping with varied injuries and juggling lineups. There are a hundred trade rumors I hear about every day, some of them brilliant and with the potential to change the face of the stretch run. And the front page of the sports section is stuffed with football training camps. Oooh, the Seahawks have a lot of talent on the field right now. Bill Parcells has brought some new…uh…thing…to the Cowboys camp.
Troy Glaus may need a Fame Audit. The Cubs teeter between contention and wait ’til next year. The Tigers haven’t turned it around in the second half. These and other news and notes out of Anaheim, Chicago, and Detroit in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
There’s quite a bit of variance among organizations with regard to how much they value and instill patience in hitters, how much they prioritize a high on-base percentage, how open they are to drafting undersized right-handed pitchers or whether they prefer skills to tools. But every organization, regardless of their prevailing philosophical stripe, covets hitters with power. It’s easy to identify power hitters at the major league level, irrespective of what measure you’re using. The traditional counting stats are grossly overvalued and rife with weaknesses, but it’s rather difficult to, say, hit 45 homers and somehow suck.
Tabbing power hitters in the early gestation periods is a bit more difficult. On the one hand, there was little doubt that Vladimir Guerrero and Alex Rodriguez, even as minor-leaguers, would one day be knocking the ever-loving crap out of the ball at the highest level. But what about Magglio Ordonez or Sammy Sosa, whose minor-league numbers hardly inspired hopes of greatness to come? What can we learn from today’s generation of power hitters?
To begin answering this question, I’ve taken the top 25 active leaders in slugging percentage (as of the end of the 2002 season) and analyzed their minor league power indicators.
I think I’m out of cell minutes. Most of my day today was spent on the phone, talking to people who were in the process of making deals. Just as in last year’s Winter Meetings, some teams came in with a plan, adding another piece to what they’ve been trying to do this season. Others are running around like baseball teams with their heads cut off. The UTK angle on all this is that some of the teams have their medical staffs involved, asking smart questions like, “Is this guy healthy?” which just seem basic, but really are a big step in the right direction. The difference between the smart teams and the others is just getting wider.
Jim Edmonds had a cortisone shot in his troublesome shoulder Monday, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. This puts him on track–assuming the shot helps reduce the inflammation–for a return no earlier than Thursday. The Cards are desperate to get him back in the lineup as they continue to shop J.D. Drew. Drew was held out of Wednesday’s game at Montreal. Initial reports were that a deal was imminent, but the move was precautionary–no reason to risk a possible deal by letting Montreal’s rock-hard turf claim another victim. And yes, the Cardinals will be on the phone with Kevin Appier on Thursday, whether or not they land another pitcher.
Baseball Prospectus: Obviously by the time you left the Expos to broadcast Marlins games for the 2001 season the off-field situation had deteriorated in Montreal. But the Marlins seem to have faced many of the same problems. How does the Marlins’ situation differ from the Expos’? Dave Van Horne: There are huge question marks in Miami–really a lot of the same signs we saw in Montreal. There is a level of support in spirit if not financially though; local government wants all sports to succeed in Florida, including the Marlins and the Devil Rays. But the political climate here is that public money can’t be used to prop up professional sports franchises. The question then becomes: Does Jeffrey Loria have the wherewithal–both the money and influence–to pull this off? He’ll be tested.
One of the perks of traveling for work–I’ve been doing a lot of that lately–is the USA Today planted in front of your hotel room door. Sure, for the most part, McPaper’s articles are about as substantive as the “continental breakfast” you’re likely to eat while reading it–but now and then, in its own glossy, Technicolor way, USA Today stumbles across something significant.
Last Wednesday’s sports page featured a headline on leadoff hitters–it seems that there aren’t very many good ones these days. As the article pointed out, none of the league’s leadoff hitters are among the top 30 players in OBP. Among qualified players, the highest-ranking leadoff hitter is Ichiro Suzuki, 39th as of this writing (Jason Kendall, who has occupied the leadoff spot in Pittsburgh since the departure of Kenny Lofton, ranks 31st). And it’s not as if Suzuki or Kendall are walking machines in the mold of Rickey Henderson–Ichiro is a fine player who can hit .340 consistently, but his walk rate is well below league average, while Kendall’s OBP is boosted in part by his fearless desire to lean into pitches.
Then again, players of the Rickey/Tim Raines profile have never been terribly common. It also doesn’t help when teams insist on placing mediocrities like Eric Young or Endy Chavez in the one-hole. Is anything going on here, apart from a one-year fluke?
Theo Epstein won’t get much sleep this week, but whatever shut-eye he does grab is going to be very, very good. Epstein, who rode out four months of small-minded teasing about his age, followed by two months of ridicule as the initial implementation of the non-closer-centric bullpen went sour, has positioned the Red Sox to be the AL’s most dangerous team down the stretch of his first year as GM.
Yesterday’s acquisition of Scott Williamson from the Reds might complete the roster, and it fills out the bullpen with the second of three pitchers best-suited to make this type of pen work. One of the others is Byung-Hyun Kim, who Epstein acquired two months ago for the extra third baseman he had lying around in Shea Hillenbrand. (The other is Octavio Dotel.)
The turnaround is stunning. For a modest cost, the Red Sox have not only picked up the two puzzle pieces that make their entire plan work, but they’ve upgraded their bullpen from a collection of high-risk, high-reward question marks to perhaps the game’s best. In addition to right-handers Kim and Williamson, the Sox have two effective lefties in Alan Embree and Scott Sauerbeck. And after a season of seeing more than a dozen pitchers post negative ARPs, the Sox go into the last two months with the following relievers…
After a great night at the ballpark with BP intern Cliff Roscow and the attendees of our first “Baseball 101” presentation, I’m coming in a bit late and, in fact, I’m already well past deadline. Rather than skip a day of UTK–yeah, I know how to keep you addicted–this will be short, stripped down, and tight: think of it as the White Stripes edition of UTK. If this and the rest of the content at BP Premium isn’t enough for you, let me recommend checking out a phenomenal interview with Michael Lewis by some-time BP contributor Alex Belth. OK, onto the injuries…
The Orioles’ pitching has come to life, costing Geronimo Gil his job. The Rockies got a strong debut out of Chin-Hui Tsao. The Mets sift through their B prospects while waiting for Huber, Wright, and Kazmir. These and other news and notes out of Baltimore, Colorado, and New York in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
Transaction Analysis brings you the latest of Chris Kahrl’s daily updates, featured all Trade Deadline week long. The Braves’ battered bullpen needs Jason Marquis to contribute. The Reds clean house. The Astros will have to somehow cope without Brian Hunter. Scratch Kris Benson off the trade market. These and other tidbits and Kahrlisms in today’s TA.
The Cubs made a steal of a deal; the Expos are getting Vladimir Guererro back, and not a moment too soon; the A’s are investing their money unwisely; the Cardinals take another hit in losing Matt Morris; and the Padres get a small-scale boost in regaining Phil Nevin. All this and much more news from around the league in your Tuesday edition of Transaction Analysis.
“What the %@#$! are the A’s doing?” That’s how I found out about the Scott Hatteberg contract extension Friday night, picking up my cell phone and hearing that question.
Hatteberg was one of the A’s success stories of 2002. Picked up for the bargain price of one meeeeeelyun dollars, the former catcher was made into a full-time first baseman and hit .280/.374/.433, good for a .292 EqA that ranked right in the middle of the pack among major league first basemen. Hatteberg made a strong transition to his new position; according to Clay Davenport’s defensive Translations, Hatteberg saved 17 runs more than an average first baseman in 81 games last season, an excellent figure. He was one of the primary characters in Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, with Lewis devoting a chapter to Hatteberg’s story and, in particular, to his approach at the plate. In 2003, however, Hatteberg has hit like a replacement-level first baseman: .264/.348/.394 (which includes a monster series against the Angels over the weekend), and his .259 EqA ranks him above just a handful of regulars at the position. At 33, Hatteberg doesn’t seem to have much development left, and if he is to have an unusual career path, Nate Silver’s PECOTA system doesn’t see it. After plugging in Hatteberg’s 2003 performance, it projects a slow decline from his 2002 peak.
There are over 290 million people in the U.S. Only above half of those have a team in their metro area. A lot more have regional teams, of course, but there are tons of people out there who are in one way or another, up for grabs. Teams only have a few minor league teams they can use to try and build affiliations with, and the rest has to be access and marketing–setting up radio feeds, getting games on televisions across the country any way you can, handing out flyers, whatever. Unfortunately the way baseball has things set up, teams are handcuffed.
Say the Expos move to Oregon and are run by, uh, me. I want to make the team popular, and I’m willing to run it at a huge loss for a while to get people attached to the new team. I want to offer free Internet radio feeds to capture a huge attractive audience of affluent people. Can’t do it, because MLB Advanced Media’s running the Internet game, and I have to be content with the money and exposure I get with their pay-for-play packages. I can try and reach the most ears with actual radio coverage, and advertise to make sure people know they can listen in, but it’s going to be extremely hard for me to crack the tiny markets and pick off those guys I wanted to get to through Internet feeds. I can set up a loss-leader television deal, start my own channel and try and go superstation, but there are huge costs involved and I just bought a baseball team, which puts me (roughly) $200 million dollars in debt, assuming a purchase price of $200 million, plus I’m going to be dealing with baseball’s impossibly complex and wacky blackout rules. I’m SOL, domestically.
Baseball’s becoming more and more of an international game, and for once should take the lead among sports innovation. Baseball should make every effort to get games on in countries where baseball’s played, particularly in the Pacific Rim. Live or rebroadcast, there should be a baseball game on every day in Seoul and Sydney, a well-produced advertisement for the sport. Baseball has a massive resource pool to get these games on the air somewhere in these markets and try and build an international fan base.