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Monthly Archives: July 2010
Reaction to Fielder And Hart Pulled Off Market
A source close to ESPN’s Keith Law (Insider link) has informed him that the Brewers have pulled Prince Fielder and Corey Hart off the trade market.
They have decided they’re close enough to contention that they’re not selling, so Hart and Fielder are off the market,” Law said, citing an executive from a rival club that was interested in a Brewers player.
There are a couple things here that need addressing.
First of all, the Brewers are not in contention. The Brewers are 9 games back of Cincinnati and 8.5 games back of St. Louis. Coolstandings gives the Brewers a 0.3% chance to reach the postseason; Baseball Prospectus is much more optimistic, at 0.45%.
This year, wins are no longer at a premium. Does it matter if the Brewers finish with 75 wins or 79? Possibly a little, as far as next year’s attendance goes, but that could easily be offset by the higher draft pick netted by a lower win total. Realistically, wins will only start mattering to Milwaukee if the Reds and Cardinals team buses crash into each other on the way to a game, or if, as people have been saying for two months now, they can rattle off a ten game winning streak. Both are unlikely.
I have a hard time believing that the front office doesn’t recognize this. If they don’t, nothing that I ever write will mean anything, because I assume that the people in our front office are rational actors. It’s possible that this is an edict from Mark Attanasio at the very top, and that would be very disheartening, as a meddling owner can absolutely kill a team. Drayton McLane in Houston meddled his way to bringing in a 5th starter and two mediocre prospects for one of the best pitchers in the league.
What do I think it really means? Possibly that Attanasio, as he’s said on multiple occasions while visiting the broadcast booth, believes that the Brewers are too close to contention next year to deal these important pieces.
Now, he might be right – as soon as the Brewers got rid of the toxic Jeff Suppan and removed Trevor Hoffman from the closer’s role, the team has vastly improved. When Suppan was released on June 7th, the Brewers were 23-34. Their current record of 48-55 isn’t exactly setting the world on fire, but it means that in the interim they have a 25-21 record, good for a .543 winning percentage, and that’s the best record in the division over that time frame by a half game over Cincinnati and a full game over St. Louis.
There’s a good reason to believe that the Brewers can sustain this kind of performance. Ryan Braun is in a down year, and should perform better over the rest of this year and next year. Prince Fielder, despite his poor first half, is still showing monster power. Rickie Weeks is becoming one of the preeminent second basemen in the league, and despite his most recent start, Yovani Gallardo is a legitimate ace. Hart has shown fantastic power, although there’s still no guarantee that he’s this good. The list goes on; the team’s weakness is starting pitching, but everything else is set, essentially.
However, this idea of contention in 2011 would preclude the possibility of a Fielder or Hart trade in the offseason. I still think the Brewers would be willing to trade either player in order to pick up a MLB ready starting pitcher – say, Ricky Nolasco, or something to that effect – but not to pick up minor league talent.
There’s also the possibility that this is simply Melvin’s response to an unfavorable market. Dan Haren and Roy Oswalt (plus $11 million!) brought in terribly unfavorable packages, and Melvin might just think that the market isn’t ready for him to deal. That way, if a market develops in the offseason, he could get good value for Hart and Fielder, and if not, then they try to contend in 2011.
I also think that Hart’s hand injury has a large part in this, as that likely killed his market value. You could make the argument that Melvin should have acted earlier here, but again, it didn’t seem like a favorable market was there, and I’d rather keep Hart than trade him for an underwhelming package like the Diamondbacks and Astros have received recently.
Ideally, I still would’ve liked to see the Brewers play the market over the last hours of the trading deadline, and it’s possible that we see a lesser piece like Jim Edmonds, Todd Coffey, or Carlos Villanueva go. I really doubt, however, that this decision really changes anything. The market just didn’t seem to exist right now, and so the Brewers will have to try again either in the offseason or at next year’s deadline.
Villanueva Demoted
Carlos Villanueva was sent down to AAA after today’s game, according to Adam McCalvy, in order to make room for LaTroy Hawkins’s return from the DL.
Villanueva has had a pretty solid year this year, particularly when you look at his peripherals. Yes, he’s walking more batters than his previous career marks, but the increase in strikeouts more than makes up for it. 2010, at least entering today’s game, represented career highs in both FIP (3.48) and xFIP (3.38), although part of that is due to this year being Villanueva’s first as a full time reliever. More important, though, is that Villanueva’s swinging strike rate of 13% is the highest of his career, and swinging strike rate is the best indicator of a pitcher that can draw strikeouts.
Due to the fact that this increased strikeout rate is only in 48 innings, ZiPS only projects a 4.05 FIP for Villanueva, actually well worse than the 3.40 projected for Hawkins. Competetively, this move is pretty meaningless, as the Brewers are replacing a solid, right handed reliever with another solid, right handed reliever, and it’s hard to argue with using Villanueva’s remaining option here. Still, I hope Villanueva doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. He has good stuff and misses bats like crazy, which is pretty much what you need in a relief pitcher.
Reds 12, BREWERS 4: Inglett Pitch F/X
I hear things happened before this, but the real story of the game was Joe Inglett’s first relief outing. Boy, he was great! A six pitch inning! Let’s take a look at the Pitch F/X, courtesly of Brooks Baseball.
Inglett threw six pitches, all knuckleballs. Five of them went for strikes. Let’s take a look at the velocity chart.
Don’t let the axis fool you. Yes, Inglett’s knuckleball ranged from 51.5 MPH to 55.6. A major leaguer threw pitches in the low 50s to three other major leaguers. None of these major leaguers hit home runs. In fact, two of these major leaguers, Brandon Phillips and Joey Votto, are actually really good at hitting! Also, Orlando Cabrera had a good year a few years ago!
Maybe Joe Inglett just hit his spots?
Nope, nothing hittable here. I dare say this Inglett fellow has a future in this game. You heard it here first – watch out for Joe Inglett, knuckleballing relief ace.
It’s always impressive to see a pitcher people are unsure about fire balls across the field with a relative speed that would make a fighter jet blush. Inglett is an extremely talented player, and whether you’re an MLB devotee or someone who loves online poker just as much as watching the Reds and the Brewers face off against each other, it’s hard not to find your eyes drawn to pitchers with a wealth of hidden power.
BREWERS 3, Reds 2: Edmonds Wins It
Sometimes, it’s difficult to tell who was really responsible for winning a game; at times it’s a total team effort and credit for a win can’t be narrowed down to two or three players. This game was not one of those games. Three players clearly influenced this game in the positive for Milwaukee.
Randy Wolf had a fantastic start today, striking out five while walking only one and keeping the ball in the yard against a pretty powerful Reds offense. Outside of one shaky inning – the two run second – Wolf was about as good as you can expect. He threw all of his pitches for strikes, and even missed some bats. His 8 swinging strikes in 103 pitches is about the league average, a large improvement over his performance to date. It’s an encouraging start against a good lineup, and hopefully Wolf continues pitching like a major leaguer in August.
After Wolf singled in the 3rd inning, Rickie Weeks blasted his 21st home run of the year. I don’t use the word “blast” lightly in this case – the ball hit off the Miller Lite sign in center field, and the broadcast crew estimated the home run at about 450 feet. That might make it Rickie’s farthest home run of the year, although it will be up against some pretty stiff competition from this bomb off Edwin Jackson earlier this year (video). Weeks continues to rake, and right now, I’m not convinced that he isn’t the best player on this roster.
Of course, the big moment of this game came from the veteran, Jim Edmonds. After fouling a pitch into the upper deck in right field, Edmonds hit the go-ahead home run into tundra territory. The home run put a black mark on Bronson Arroyo’s otherwise solid start, and it put the Brewers in a great situation heading into the ninth inning, and John Axford, as he’s done all season, shut the door.
The Brewers are now only 5 games under .500 and are in the best shape, standings-wise, that they’ve been since falling to 17-27 nearly two months ago. Should we start to get excited about the playoffs right now? Probably not – even if Milwaukee can catch the Reds, they still have to catch the Cardinals. I do know, however, that the last two months of the season can be a lot of fun, regardless of if this team makes it a race or not.
Optimism With Carlos Gomez
I know that this is a lot of words to spill over a player who is essentially a role player on this team right now, but while he’s on people’s minds, let’s discuss Carlos Gomez’s season to date in a little more detail. Everybody and their mother is down on Gomez right now, but I think we should all hold on a second, because maybe Gomez hasn’t been as bad as the surface numbers would indicate this season.
Gomez is hitting .242/.293/.372 right now, which is certainly a bad line. It isn’t, however, so bad that Gomez deserves to be sent to the minors or jettisoned from the club in general. That line is good for a .301 wOBA and an 86 wRC+. That’s nothing to get too worked up about, but it’s important to remember that offense is down leaguewide this season. That means that Gomez’s slight uptick in slugging and his seeming lack of improvement at other facets of hitting actually indicates an improvement all around; his 86 wRC+ is a full 11 points above his career average and 19 above his abysmal 2009 season.
Put that together with his UZR-measured average defense in CF for the season, and Gomez has been worth 0.5 WAR in 244 plate appearances. Is that good? Not really, but given the general sentiment around Gomez, one would think that he is below replacement level. To date, Gomez has been a 1.2 WAR player over a full season. Again, that’s not a world beater, but that does have value – given the distribution of talent around the league, even playoff teams will be seen starting players of Gomez’s caliber, and a player like that is worth around $5 million on the free agent market.
There’s reason to believe that he will get better, too, just looking at the numbers from this season. Gomez had low BABIPs in 2007 and 2009, in large part due to insanely high infield fly rates – 17.6% of fly balls in 2007 and 19.8% in 2009. Even in 2008, when he posted a .330 BABIP and his best offensive season of his career to that point, his IFFB rate was 13.7%, still well higher than average. I remember that was a talking point of the Brewers coaching staff prior to this season, and it appears to have paid off, as Gomez has lowered his IFFB rate all the way down to 6.7%, below the league average. The IFFB is essentially a strikeout, so this is great for Gomez to at least give himself a chance when the ball is in the air. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that his 8.3% HR/FB rate is also the highest of his career.
This improvement on infield flies hasn’t manifested itself in Gomez’s BABIP, which is still pretty low at .290, but I expect that it will as the season goes on. Gomez has the ability to compile infield hits, and with the infield fly issues gone, I would expect that Gomez would post more .310-.320 BABIP seasons.
The other thing with Gomez is his defense, which has been measured as average this year but in a very small sample size. Subjectively, I think it’s pretty clear that Gomez has ridiculous range, and although he sometimes has brain farts with the arm, the fact that his arm is powerful forces runners to hold up at bases. I think that he is at least a +5 CF, and possibly +10 to +15. If I’m right, then Gomez is a 0.7 WAR player so far this year, on pace for about 1.5 WAR, with room to easily grow into an average player or something better. With Gomez under team control for the next three seasons, he should not be written off.
Brewers 3, PIRATES 2: Gallardo Returns, Axford Closes
The big story from tonight’s game is, of course, the return of ace Yovani Gallardo. Gallardo showed no signs of any lingering injury or even any sign of missed time – it’s possible the extended rest after the break even helped his arm, as his fastball reached 95 and averaged 92.9, over a half-mile an hour higher than his season average. He struck out five pirates while only walking one, and induced 10 swinging strikes in 95 pitches. Overall, this was a pretty standard Gallardo performance.
Gallardo told Telly Hughes after the game that he didn’t notice anything from the oblique strain, although we won’t really know for sure until tomorrow. Still, it’s hard to imagine any lingering effects, and given that the injury was a core injury as opposed to an arm injury, I’m not terribly worried about this injury, long term.
The offense was all Weeks and Fielder. Both players hit home runs, numbers 19 and 24 respectively, in order to put three runs on the board for the Brewers. Each of them would be key, thanks to a ridiculous intentional HBP from Todd Coffey which ignited a two out rally which put the Pirates within striking distance in the late innings. Headhunting is great if you’re an emotionally weak team, and some may think that it’s important to show force. I’m not even sure if that’s true, but if it is, there’s a time and a place for everything, and in the late innings of a close game is not the time nor the place to intentionally put runners on the bases for nothing more than to get some sort of superficial revenge.
Of course, the late innings belong to John Axford, who recorded the last five outs for another unconventional save. Axford continues to make me, and hopefully Brewers management, wonder why the conventional save is three outs. Axford has shown no ill effects from the extra work and his contributions have been huge – his +.276 WPA was second only to Gallardo in today’s game. This time, Axford lived on the edges of the zone with his 95 MPH heat, drawing weak contact and two strikeouts from Pirates hitters. Axford is one of the young talents on this team that makes it worth watching as the season winds into the dog days of August and September, and he was key in tonight’s win.
Revisiting Casey McGehee’s Value
The trade talks involving the Brewers and the Chicago White Sox have involved Chicago 2B/3B Gordon Beckham, which has made some wonder what that could mean for Casey McGehee. Before we needlessly get into a trade rumor that may or may not have any basis in reality, let’s talk a little bit about how valuable Casey McGehee actually is.
After a blistering start – a .402 wOBA in April – and a pretty decent May – .354 wOBA – McGehee has really cooled down. He had an awful June, characterized by minimal power and a .250 BABIP. His overall line that month was .223/.295/.362, leading to a terrible .277 wOBA. He hasn’t been much better this month – the BABIP is up to .294 but the power is way down, resulting in a .254/.309/.349 line and a .296 wOBA.
McGehee is a long way from the guy that some people thought deserved All-Star consideration now. His line of .271/.335/.443 is decent, especially given the leaguewide offensive implosion this season. However, his AVG/OBP are down about 30 points each, and the SLG is down 50, which is completely unsurprising for a slow player coming off a season with a BABIP about 30 points above league average.
So, what kind of player are we looking at? That wOBA of .336 is decent, about 110% of the league average. An average third baseman with that line is worth about 3 WAR. That’s a well above average player and a pretty solid asset, particularly before arbitration, and McGehee won’t hit arbitration until the 2012 season.
The sticking point, then, has to be defense. McGehee seemingly has a decent reputation, but I’m not sure what that’s based on. He does seem to be solid at fielding the bunt and the ball right at him, but his range seems limited and his arm can be wonky at times. Ultimate Zone Rating has his range as quite poor. In almost 1300 innings at the position – not a huge sample, but not tiny, it’s about a season and a quarter – McGehee has a -14 UZR/150. That’s very bad, but not quite 2007 Ryan Braun bad. It’s not enough of a sample to be conclusive, though, and there are certainly reasons to be skeptical of defensive metrics. Still, both between the eye test and the numbers, I have a hard time believing McGehee to be an average fielder.
It’s very hard to nail down defensive value, and career offensive stats aren’t fantastic predictors of future statistics either, particularly only 800 plate appearances into a career. Given McGehee’s unimpressive minor league numbers, ZiPS only projects a .324 wOBA for the rest of the season, effectively average in this “year of the pitcher” league.
Again, it all comes down to defense. If McGehee is as bad as the numbers say, around -15 runs per season at 3B, he’s a below average player and certainly not a significant piece of Milwaukee’s future. If he’s an average fielder, he’s a league average player and a decent asset, particularly next year when he will still be cheap. I do feel confident in saying that he’s not the All-Star that his April may have suggested.
My personal opinion of his defense, as I hinted above, is that he would fall in the -5 to -15 runs per season defensive range. If he hits at his ZiPS projection, that makes him a 0.7-1.7 win player, and if he hits at his season numbers to date, a 1.2-2.2 win player. The top end of that range is decent, and McGehee can still be a solid player, but there’s also the chance the he collapses at the plate. Right now, McGehee is an interesting asset, but not a player worth investing a significant portion of the future on.
Brewers 3, PIRATES 1: Capuano, Weeks, Axford Get It Done
Could I possibly say enough about the job Chris Capuano did tonight for the Brewers? The four strikeout, three hit, one walk performance stands on its own, but the fact that he was able to do it after a 50 minute rain delay and under a 60-70 pitch count limit was impressive and, dare I say, gritty. Capuano really saved the bullpen today, and the impact of this start will last beyond this game.
As far as his stuff goes, it’s difficult to take too much out of one start, but his fastball averaged 88, which is faster than he ever was as a starter. He also drew eight swinging strike in his 65 pitches, which is excellent. Given his success tonight, I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing Capuano get another chance in the rotation, if the circumstances allow it, although he could also be valuable as a reliever in late inning situations as well – either way, expect Cappy to get a little more use than the meager 10 innings he’d seen prior to tonight.
Rickie Weeks continues to rake, hitting his 18th home run tonight. Weeks led all Brewers in WAR with 2.9 entering the game. He’s still not the greatest defender, but when you can hit like this and even play a semi-competent second base, you’re a legitimate star, and that’s what Weeks is turning himself into this season.
John Axford made us sweat a little bit at the end of the game, but his pitching against Ryan Doumit and Ryan Church, with two on and nobody out to boot, was tremendous. He located incredibly well and even though he doesn’t have a particular out pitch against lefties, he managed to record two key strikeouts to get to Ronnie Cedeno to end the game. I keep expecting him to crack – and unfortunately, he will at some point – but the ride so far has been fantastic.
Overall, this was a game that easily could’ve gone wrong for the Brewers at a number of points, but they managed to pull out a win in unfavorable conditions with a spot starter, and that has to feel good.
The Hardy Trade Was Bad, But Not Because Of Carlos Gomez
One big subject on the mind of Brewers fans and across the Brewers blogosphere lately has been Carlos Gomez, both at Bernie’s Crew and at Brew Crew Ball. There’s no doubt that Gomez has been disappointing this year: he’s posted a paltry line of .236/.289/.363. Even wOBA, which includes the value of his 10 SB to only 2 CS, only has him a .297. Given that wOBA is on the same scale as OBP, that’s simply not good.
All in all, that’s come out to a meager 0.4 wins above replacement in 233 plate appearances, which comes out to a sub-average 1.0 WAR over a full season of 600 plate appearances. That’s an incredibly disappointing return for an asset like Hardy, who, despite a down season, still was one of the best defensive shortstops around and had shown the ability to hit with power in the past, something that is incredibly rare at the position.
As Jim Breen mentions in the Bernie’s Crew post, the Red Sox reportedly offered Michael Bowden for J.J. Hardy. (Note: Any time this trade is mentioned, I have to point out this tweet from Jonah Keri). Bowden was part of a wave of Red Sox arms making noise around baseball, but was he really that good? In 2009 in AAA, Bowden was very unimpressive. Yes, he posted a 3.52 ERA, but nearly every peripheral number after that suggests he just wasn’t that good. His 6.2% HR/FB rate accounts for a half-decent FIP of 4.18. When it comes down to it, though I just don’t see a guy who posts a K rate of 6.2 with a BB rate of 3.3 (that’s a K/BB below 2.0) making a good or even competent starter in the major leagues. He’s been turned into a reliever, but given the low K rates, I’m not even convinced he can succeed in that role.
Breen suggests that the fact that Bowden was offered means that the Brewers likely had some solid offers on the table, in terms of pitching prospects. To me, what it suggests is that the market for J.J. Hardy was extremely low. How else could a player like Hardy, who despite the worst season of his life in 2009 had posted a remarkable 10.7 WAR from 2007-2009, only bring in mediocre pitching prospects or projects like Gomez? Hardy was just coming off being demoted to AAA. Even though other teams may have understood that he is a better player than he was in 2009, they had no reason to offer anything even approaching fair value for him. Demoting Hardy to AAA was just like shouting to the rest of the baseball world that you believe that he’s done; it’s a complete value killer.
Meanwhile, Alcides Escobar was climbing the organizational ladder, and his stock really couldn’t have been higher. By all accounts, he was the best fielding shortstop in minor league baseball and potentially in the MLB as well. His bat wasn’t great, but he showed decent contact skills in the minors and hit .298/.351/.411 with Nashville in 2009. This was probably the peak of Escobar’s value – now, and rather predictably, given the .240/.267/.300 minor league equivalency for that AAA line, Escobar is one of the worst hitting shortstops in the NL, and although his defense has shown flashes, there’s definitely no proof that it is better than J.J. Hardy’s.
It’s very easy for me to say it now, and given that this blog didn’t exist last year, it may just seem like hindsight is 20-20, but I had been saying this throughout the 2009 offseason that the proper course of action for the Brewers would be to trade Alcides Escobar, and not J.J. Hardy. Escobar’s value was at it’s peak, and Hardy would be under team control for an additional year due to his demotion to AAA and probably wouldn’t hit as poorly in 2010 as he did in 2009 – much of his issues were due to a .260 BABIP.
Turns out Hardy is still struggling at the plate – only a .286 wOBA with the Twins, which is only slightly better than Escobar’s .277. The park factors aren’t completely set in Minnesota, and that might be part of the issue, but still, it doesn’t look like Hardy’s power has returned. Still, even if you make the questionable assumption that Escobar’s defense is just as good as Hardy’s, you have essentially the same player. Escobar has a higher chance of breakout, and Hardy is more expensive, but what about the possible trade return for Esocbar, who was the #19 prospect according to Baseball America prior to 2009 and #12 before 2010? According to Victor Wang’s prospect value research, a #11-#25 prospect was worth about $25.1 million in surplus value. That can buy roughly 6-8 WAR, meaning that Gomez, a player whose best-case WAR is probably about 3.0, would be far less than any package likely offered for Escobar.
Do the Brewers bring in a solid SP? Do they shore up the farm system? Obviously, this is just a big game of “what if.” The point, though, is that the problem with the Hardy trade isn’t so much the return. The issue is that you’re simply not going to get fair value for a player when you trade him at their absolute worst. See Alex Rios, who was traded for literally nothing and now is already at 3.2 WAR with the White Sox. The Brewers doomed themselves from the moment that Hardy was demoted, and that’s why we’re stuck with a weak hitting, speedy center fielder and a shortstop who has looked utterly lost at the plate in the big leagues.
