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CLEVELAND INDIANS Team Audit | Player Cards | Depth Chart |
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Signed OF-R Ben Francisco to a minor-league deal. [1/21]
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HOUSTON ASTROS Team Audit | Player Cards | Depth Chart |
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Signed LHP Erik Bedard to a minor-league deal. [1/21]
The last time Bedard made this column, it came on the heels of his release from the Pirates; partly because he pitched poorly, partly because of his laconic style. You’ll have to excuse me for not taking the charge seriously, it’s just so many people have accused Bedard of apathy or rudeness that the effect is gone. If Bedard is a jerk, he must be the benign kind, so long as he doesn't violate a golden rule: Only valuable players get away with acting poorly. Expect Bedard to open the season in the Astros rotation, which is the first step in his master plan to irk reporters and fans in another city. —R.J. Anderson
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TORONTO BLUE JAYS Team Audit | Player Cards | Depth Chart |
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NEW YORK METS Team Audit | Player Cards | Depth Chart |
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PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES Team Audit | Player Cards | Depth Chart |
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Signed LF/DH-R Delmon Young to a one-year contract for $750,000, plus incentives that could bring the value to around $3.25 million. [1/22]
The simplest way to explain this is to note that $750,000 is a pittance for a team with a ~$170 million payroll, that it's about as low as you can pay even for near-replacement level players, that Delmon Young is near the replacement level, and that no move that costs just $750,000 can produce enough downside to get too agitated over it.
But criminologists will tell you that the severity of punishment is less of a deterrent to crime than the certainty of punishment, which might make you wonder why the apparent certainty of disappointment didn't deter the Phillies from signing Young, regardless of the modest stakes. We've got Young at around 1.2 WARP in his career, which is already six full seasons old, and at -0.9 in the past year, -1.2 in the past two years, and 0.6 in the past three years. In 2012, he had the same isolated power as Alexi Amarista, a Pomeranian chew toy who played in Petco. Young had a worse walk rate than nine NL teams' pitchers. Even with the spectacular fluctuations you expect from defensive metrics, he hasn't had a single season in his career with a positive FRAA—or, for that matter, a positive +/-, or a positive UZR. He has, however, thrown more bats at umpires in his career than every other player in the majors combined.
- Player A: 431 games, 247 of them in the field; 106 OPS+, -9.2 FRAA, -14.3 Baserunning runs, 0.8 WARP
- Player B: 428 games, 295 of them in the field, 102 OPS+, -18.5 FRAA, -5.8 Baserunning runs, 0.6 WARP
We aren't involved in the conversations that lead to a deal like Young's happening, but presumably upside was discussed, alluded to, or at the very least in the back of the Phillies executives' minds. Adam Dunn, for instance, would get considerably more than $750,000 (plus incentives) as a free agent because Dunn has upside. He has been good in the more distant past, which makes him more likely to be good in the future than somebody who hasn't been good in the past. And he has been quite good, which suggests not just that he might return to form but that the form might be exciting. And this is the thinking behind Young, who stands out among the great unwashed replacement-level masses simply because he's interesting.
Young, like Dunn, has been good in the past (though much more distant). I wouldn't say that Young has ever been quite good, unless it's followed by the qualifier "for his age." But "good for his age," and particularly "great for his age," often turn into "good" or "great" eventually.
That doesn't mean it's a good thing to sign Delmon Young. It merely means that there is a thought process behind signing Delmon Young. Whether we should accept that thought process is what's next.
Young was, as you know, an elite prospect. Three times he was Baseball America's no. 3 prospect, and mixed in was one year at the very top of their list. The only position players to rank ahead of him at any point were Joe Mauer, B.J. Upton, and Alex Gordon.
Gordon is an interesting name to mention there, because Gordon was also a flop through age 26, and now he's 28 and he's a superstar, or at least plays like one while few people notice. Young's past-three-years line was already mentioned (Player B), but Gordon's line during the same three years wasn't exciting, either: 95 OPS+, and 4.3 WARP (thanks to better defense and baserunning). Since then, he has been worth 11 WARP in the past two seasons. If Delmon Young's agent didn't mention Gordon when he was talking to Ruben Amaro, Jr., he doesn't deserve his cut of the contract.
How realistic is it, though, for a player like Young—elite prospect, disappointing early/mid-20s—to bloom late and establish himself as something other than he has established himself? I went through the Baseball America top 100s from 1990 through 2000 and collected all the top-10 position prospects, then filtered out all but those who were disappointing through age 26. The disappointing ones were any with fewer than 4 WARP produced in their age 24, 25, and 26 seasons. (Gordon wasn't a prospect in this era, but even if he had been, he was too good to count as Delmon-level disappointment.)
There were 21. I've brought a table to this party!
| Player | 24-26 | 27-29 |
|---|---|---|
| Sandy Alomar, Jr. | 1.8 | 4.8 |
| Eric Anthony | 0.7 | 0.5 |
| Andujar Cedeno | -1.1 | -0.1 |
| Mark Lewis | 1.8 | 0.7 |
| Wil Cordero | 1.1 | -1.3 |
| Royce Clayton | 2.9 | 5.6 |
| Cliff Floyd | 3 | 11 |
| Jeffrey Hammonds | 3.5 | 4.4 |
| Alex Gonzalez | 2.6 | 3.7 |
| Ruben Rivera | 3.6 | 1.8 |
| Ben Grieve | 1.8 | 0.7 |
| Karim Garcia | 0.8 | -1.5 |
| Ben Davis | 2.1 | -0.7 |
| Travis Lee | 1 | 2.6 |
| Todd Walker | 3 | 3.7 |
| Paul Konerko | 3.5 | 3 |
| Michael Barrett | 1.3 | 7.4 |
| Pablo Ozuna | 0 | -0.2 |
| Ruben Mateo | -1.1 | 0 |
| Corey Patterson | 2.9 | -1.5 |
| Sean Burroughs | 0.3 | 0 |
What we mostly see are players who were bad and stayed bad. What we mostly see is that, if these players are the template for Young, the Phillies have a new right fielder who is going to be lousy. If he is, that's sorta okay. At $750,000, he's easy enough to cut loose, assuming that we're talking about a functioning front office (which I assume we are).
Again, assuming a functional front office and an alert manager, there's no reason to think Young has to play all season over Brown unless he's good. Between Young and Darin Ruf, there will be plenty of chances for the Phillies to change course and get Brown full-time play, unless Young and Ruf are both very good. In that unlikely scenario, the Phillies will be thrilled, and if that's the case Brown can go fly a kite for all anybody will care.
A lot of times we say we can't judge a move until we see how the players play; but in this case, it's far less about how Young plays, and more about how the organization reacts to his nearly but not quite inevitable failure. Because there's no reason this move has to cost them anything more than $750,000, a pittance, unless they let it. —Sam Miller
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Roy Halladay is not amused.