Baseball 2004 Archives

Theo strikes again, signing Wade Miller.

Mac Thomason rips Baseball America a new one over its preference for toolsy high-upside prospects over guys who have less upside but more likelihood of developing into useful contributors. I'm woefuly deficient in following the minor leagues myself, so I can't judge who's right on the particular prospects in question, but Mac's point is worth considering.

Perhaps the most striking feature of this baseball offseason, coming during an era when effective starting pitching would seem to be in short supply, is the large number of starting pitchers with substantial track records - many of them quite successful in recent years - who have gone on the market. I'm probably missing someone here, but I count 30 starters - 20% of the starting jobs in the big leagues, and more than that as a proportion of guys with any kind of major league track record - who have either been traded or been free agents this off season (this is counting free agents who re-signed or, like Roger Clemens, are now committed to one team, as well as guys in the Randy Johnson deal who were publicly traded before the deal fell through). Of course, with so many pitchers available, it behooves buyers in this market not to overpay out of a concern for scarcity. To make sense of the available options, it's therefore useful to look at them as a group.

In the past, I've found "established performance levels" to be a useful way to organize information about a player's record, including my continuing "Established Win Shares Levels" studies. In that spirit, here are the established performance levels, Win Shares included, for those 30 pitchers, ranked by ERA+ (which I computed as a weighted average); I listed "U" next to the team for guys who are still unclaimed:

Of course, this chart is just past performance; it doesn't show the severe injury risks associated with a large number of these guys, most notably Pedro and Brad Penny . . . Just a few more quick thoughts for now:

*You can clearly see that the Mets overpayed for Kris Benson. While I'm not a fan of Benson, I wasn't opposed to re-signing him, which seemed like a necessary move to avoid opening a hole in the rotation. But it's now clear that there were many other available alternatives of comparable quality, and the Mets should have relied on that to avoid overpaying and, if necessary, sign or trade for someone else.

*The difficulty of sustaining a serious workload in this day and age is apparent from the fact that only Hudson and Vazquez have been able to establish a level of 210 or more innings over the last three-year period.

*Context matters: Carl Pavano's numbers look better than those of Vazquez because he was pitching in a friendlier evironment last year. Derek Lowe's ERAs are actually better than those of David Wells, when you adjust for Fenway.

*Matt Clement is indeed a useful pitcher, and his power would have made him especially valuable to the Mets, but the guy does have weaknesses (mainly walks) that will be exposed at Fenway.

*I continue to think that Billy Beane will be vindicated in his decision to deal Mark Mulder now rather than later as far as Mulder's declining performance and uncertain health/durability is concerned - but that doesn't justify the trade, because it doesn't look like Beane got enough value in return. Good strategy, bad tactics. The same applies to a lesser extent to the Hudson deal.

*Matt Morris' performance no longer lives up to his reputation.

*Somebody could still really make a quiet impact on their rotation by snagging both Odalis Perez and Wade Miller.

So, after all the speculation about Javier Vazquez not being able to pitch in New York, Vazquez apparently scuttles the Randy Johnson deal by refusing to report to the Dodgers for a physical. Of course, it could be that he or the Yankees have something to hide about his physical condition, and it could be that Vazquez is trying to squeeze some extra money out of the deal. But for now, he seems to have decided that he'd rather try to make it here, and prove he could make it a-ny-where . . .

Two of the Astros rotation slots remain up in the air: Wade Miller is leaving town, but Roger Clemens has accepted arbitration, meaning that if he comes back again it will be as an Astro.

Miller's a good pitcher who's been scarred by injuries and Minute Maid Field; if he's healthy, he'd be a great pickup for someone.

Clemens can certainly still pitch, so it's more a matter of motivation. If he does return, Clemens - the winningest righthander since Grover Alexander - could become only the second pitcher (after Warren Spahn) to break 330 career wins in the post-1920 lively ball era.

The Baseball Savant gets carried away with Eric Chavez, comparing his numbers through age 26 to Barry Bonds:

The only real difference between the two at this point is that Bonds was showing a greater degree of plate discipline at this early stage than is Chavez. On the other hand, Chavez is showing much more power than Bonds at this point.

Link via Pinto. Of course, Bonds through age 26 had won back-to-back MVP awards; Chavez has never placed in the top 10 in the balloting. That's because the offensive context Chavez plays in is radically different; for example, the rough measure of OPS+ shows Chavez at 131, 122, 132 and 132 the past four years, compared to 147, 125, 170 and 161 for Bonds.

Even if you ignore context, though, the comparison doesn't hold. Chavez missed 37 games to injury last season, something that didn't happen to Bonds until he was 34. And the comparison totally overlooks a factor of great significance in projecting player development: speed. Chavez has stolen 14 bases and grounded into 35 double plays the past two years, compared to 97 steals and 16 GIDP for Bonds at the same age. (As to the plate discipline, Chavez has drawn 90+ walks once; Bonds had done it three years running). Even with just the raw numbers, you could see several reasons why Chavez' future as a hitter - even ignoring the post-2000 Bonds surge, which is entirely without precedent - shouldn't be compared to Barry Bonds.

Some new developments in the D.C. stadium saga:

D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams and Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp have reached an agreement tonight on the terms of a baseball stadium financing package that they believe likely will satisfy Major League Baseball by guaranteeing construction of a future home for the Washington Nationals, aides said…

Details are still emerging about the new agreement between Cropp and Williams, but the full 13-member council will be asked to vote on an amended plan today…

Hopefully, they have better options on the table than just this.

Looks like Mike Cameron is going to be out for the start of next season. The Mets shouldn’t need an extra incentive to pursue Carlos Beltran, but this would seem to be it.

Aaron Gleeman on Luis Rivas:

The Official Twins Beat Writer of AG.com, La Velle E. Neal III, wrote an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune over the weekend that carried the headline: "Team worries Rivas has become stale."

As you can imagine, I got a nice chuckle out of that one. I also wondered about someone like Luis Rivas becoming "stale." I mean, if you have a bucket of, say, feces, and you leave it out for a week, does it become something worse than a bucket of feces? Does it become "rancid feces" or something? And how big of a bucket would you need to fit Rivas into it, exactly?

Q of the Day: Of the 15 Harvard alums to play Major League Baseball, name the only one to make the Hall of Fame.

Answer in the extended entry:

Well, you knew Steinbrenner had to do something to top Pedro coming to Shea, and there was only one pitcher out there (well, other than bringing back Clemens) who fit the bill. Just wait for the first time Pedro and Randy Johnson square off in the regular season . . . although Joe Torre traditionally tries to duck the head-to-head matchups of aces.

Short term - over the next two seasons, maybe three - this deal is a bonanza for the Yankees, who give up the struggling Javier Vazquez and bring in the dominating Johnson plus, apparently, as of the latest report, Kaz Ishii, who can also be potentially useful. I'll have to digest the broader pitcure for the Yankee pitching staff later, but the minimal changes to the everyday lineup, combined with the addition of Johnson, Ishii, Pavano, Wright, Stanton and Rodriguez leaves no doubt where the Yanks felt they needed to improve.

If Vazquez isn't nursing an undisclosed injury - a very real possibility- I envy the Dodgers getting him out of the Bronx, where Torre had lost confidence in him, and into Dodger Stadium, although the Daily News suggested this morning that he could be headed to the White Sox . . . of course, the deal is still cotngent on Brad Penny passing a physical with Arizona, among other things (think the D-Backs ever thought when they traded Penny for Matt Mantei that they'd need to part with the Big Unit to get him back?)

The rationale for dumping Johnson and bringing in Penny makes sense for Arizona, and Shawn Green is still young enough, but Green's injuries and high salary obviously make him a less than ideal return on Johnson.

More to follow on all this, as well as Tim Hudson to the Braves, Beltre to the Mariners, and Renteria and Clement to the Red Sox . . . the moves are just coming too fast to make sense of them all.

You can now buy the departed Redbird Nation blog, starring our old friend and fellow Crusader Brian Gunn, in handy book form here. I've already ordered my copy.

The D.C. Council has pretty much rewritten the city’s agreement with Major League Baseball, leaving the future of the former Montreal Expos once again in doubt.

I’m sympathetic to the argument that D.C. taxpayers shouldn’t get stuck with the whole tab for a new stadium, but the City Council should honor the city’s original agreement with MLB. Doing otherwise only gives baseball an excuse to look elsewhere for a less inept city government that won’t renege on its deals.

UPDATE: David Pinto has a different take, which I agree with in principle, except to say that, if D.C. wanted to draw a line about demanding private financing, the time to do that was when it first made a deal. With baseball already committed to moving and renaming the team and local baseball fans prepared to support it, I think it’s wrong to reverse course like this. Hopefully, an owner or investor will ride in to pony up the money, but the track record of D.C.’s local government can’t be much of an incentive.

SECOND UPDATE (from the Crank): I like the image of Bud Selig as Lando . . . Eric McErlain has been all over this story, and has links aplenty here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Chris Lawrence makes a valid point.

A reader emailed me this question:

"Who is the only player to hit an Inside the Park Grand Slam pinch hit Home Run and have it be the only Home run of his career?"

Well, I didn't know the answer, and haven't yet been able to verify that it happened that way (maybe someone can confirm this in the comments). But assuming that there is, in fact, precisely one such player, I think I found the answer.

This link lists the 12 major leaguers to hit both a pinch hit grand slam and an inside the park grand slam in their careers:

Randy Winn is the 12th major-leaguer, third in the past 50 years, to hit an inside-the-park grand slam (Oct. 3, 1999) and a pinch-hit grand slam (April 4). The others, according to SABR home run analyst David Vincent: Mike O'Neill, Beals Becker, Cy Williams, Marty Kavanagh, Rogers Hornsby, Harvey Hendrick, Les Bell, Hack Wilson, Pete Milne, Tim McCarver and Cesar Cedeno.

(A purportedly complete list of inside the park grand slams is here).

Of the 12, precisely one player had just one career home run: Pete Milne of the 1949 New York Giants. Milne batted 29 times in 31 games for the Giants that year while making just one appearance in the field, so it stands to reason that he was used mostly as a pinch hitter. (The list above identifies the date of his grand slam as April 27, 1949, a game the Giants won 11-8 over the hated Dodgers, so it's not surprising that it won him a job as a pinch hitter). So that appears to be the answer.

As you can tell from my commentary the past few days, I have decidedly mixed feelings about the Mets' signing of Pedro Martinez to a four-year, $50 million contract. Some thoughts, some original, some not, in no particular order:

1. Four years is obviously too much guaranteed time for a guy with Pedro's injury history. On the other hand, the cost of the deal is money ($50 million), players (the draft picks the Mets give up) and opportunity cost (the innings Pedro takes away from other players). Given that Pedro seems unlikely to reach the point where he's pitching a lot of innings but pitching ineffectively, an extra year only costs the Mets one of those, the money. On the other hand, you can hardly blame the Red Sox for deciding that this was crazy money.

2. In the same vein: finding good young hitters is not that hard; finding good young pitchers these days - guys who can consistently take 30 turns in the rotation with a better-than-league ERA - is next to impossible. And Barry Bonds notwithstanding, in general, hitters decline much more predictably with age than do pitchers. And, a starting pitcher usually does much less to block the progress of good young arms, since few teams are so glutted with pitching that they can't quickly find room for a good youngster. All of which are a way of explaining why, as a general matter, I'm more willing to see even a rebuilding team take on an expensive starting pitcher in his 30s, as compared to a Sammy Sosa-type declining slugger.

3. Pedro is, as I discussed yesterday, a pitcher of historic levels of greatness. If you are going to gamble, better to gamble on a guy who's an inner-circle Hall of Famer than on . . . well, on Kris Benson and Victor Zambrano, for example. Given his track record, I view Pedro as much more of a proven commodity, and not a significantly greater injury risk, than Carl Pavano or Jaret Wright, both headed to the Bronx after precisely one year of being healthy and effective. (Of course, all pitchers are greater injury risks than almost all everyday players).

On the durability front, well, Pedro is replacing Al Leiter, who is six years older and was never an iron man himself. Leiter, working for an average salary the past 3-4 years of about $2 million per year less than Pedro will make, averaged 194 innings a year in his seven seasons at Shea, only once throwing more than 210 (Pedro threw 217 last year, but with diminished effectiveness compared to 2001-03). If we get about the same from Pedro, I'll be happy. I don't expect 230 innings.

4. Shea is a great place for a power pitcher, especially with Mike Cameron in center field, and facing a pitcher instead of some Frank Thomas/Edgar Martinez type DH every nine hitters is a great way to cut down the number of stressful pitches thrown. Both of which are a way of saying that Pedro may wind up being more valuable with the Mets than he would have been with the Red Sox. Bringing a power pitcher to Shea is like bringing a power hitter to Wrigley (see, Dawson, Andre; Alou, Moises).

5. Of course, none of this should be viewed as a substitute for the long-term strategy the Mets need to develop young talent. But frankly, I'm not about to hold my breath waiting for that to happen. Given the existing strategy of trying to half-rebuild while continuing to prop up the team with veterans, Pedro is a decent fit in that context.

6. I know the market has changed a lot, but $50 million really doesn't look like an extraordinary amount of money compared to past contracts given to Mike Hampton, Kevin Brown, Darren Dreifort, Kevin Appier, Mike Mussina, Tom Glavine, Chan Ho Park . . . yeah, there's a lot of bad decisions there, but this isn't a Mo Vaughn style 7-year $100-mil-plus millstone here; it's basically one Kris Benson plus one Kaz Matsui. If this deal deters the Mets from two more middle-market contracts like those, where's the harm?

7. Just for a little perspective, if you look at the most similar pitchers at the same age, Pedro is around the same age at which Tom Seaver went to the Reds, Roger Clemens to the Blue Jays, Mussina to the Yankees, and Lefty Grove to the Red Sox. Most of the guys on that list had their ups and downs in their mid-30s, but in general they had some real high points as well. Of course, physically, Martinez resembles Mussina, Grove, Greg Maddux, Whitey Ford or Juan Marichal much more than he does Seaver or Clemens. On a more sobering note, Pedro is also about the same age Frank Viola and Bret Saberhagen were when they left the Mets.

8. Can we finally have a no-hitter now, please?

9. Dan Lewis asks Five Questions:

1) Will this guy improve the team next year?
2) Does the move cost us too much in players?
3) What would our plan have been if we didn’t make this move, and is the gain signficant?
4) What is the effect of the deal if it goes badly?
5) If the deal goes awry, how will we fix it?

Go see his answers; I do think there's a missing factor here: the deal has upside. Although I don't regard it as the most likely possibility, it's certainly one of the plausible scenarios to get 800 innings, 800 strikeouts and an ERA below 3.00 from Pedro over the next four years. Given the scarcity of highly effective pitchers these days, that would be worth more than $12 million a year, in my view. (A return to something close to vintage Pedro, which is not going to happen, would be worth much more). That's one thing that distinguishes this from the contracts that a lot of mid-30s hitters get, where you are paying them a salary equal to the best value they are likely to give you. Hey, you win in baseball by taking risks. This deal is a big risk, but then Vladimir Guerrero last year was a big risk too. This is one that could pay off. Better that than give out more $25 million contracts to guys who are a safe bet to turn in a 4.25 ERA.

Long-time readers will recall my Translated Pitcher Records project from four years ago. Hopefully, I'll get back to that one some day. But a simpler way of comparing the very best pitchers over time is ERA+, baseballreference.com's comparison of a pitcher's career ERA to a park-context-adjusted league average. There are two problems, however, with the baseballreference.com leaderboard: it has a very low innings pitched threshold, and thus is loaded at the top with relief pitchers; and, unlike my Translated Records, it isn't translated back into a recognizable ERA benchmark.

So I thought I'd do both; I separated out the pitchers by groupings of innings pitched, and translated their ERAs back into a uniform context of a league ERA of 4.50, which is around midway between the NL and AL ERAs in 2004:

3000 Career Innings or More

You can see why I stick to the view that Walter Johnson was the greatest of all pitchers, as he stands second only to Lefty Grove here, and in 40% more innings. This list is dominated by pre-1920 and active pitchers, other than Grove and Ford. While I knew he was on the edge of making a Hall of Fame case, I was as surprised as anyone to see Kevin Brown on a list this elite. And this is also further confirmation of precisely how great Kid Nichols was, and why he really gets a raw deal when the great pitchers of old are being ranked.

2000-3000 Career Innings

This second list is guys who have had fairly substantial careers but not a full, 15-years-at-200-innings career:

You can see here why, for all my mixed feelings about the warning signs and the Mets overpaying, I'm still excited about the possibility of Pedro coming to Shea: he's been head and shoulders above anybody else who's ever pitched, he's still just 33, and a guy that good is worth a gamble. . . Noodles Hahn? Yeah, I'm not too sure about that one either, but Hahn's the classic forgotten type of pitcher, a guy whose big years came with the turn-of-the-century Reds, a dismal franchise in a quiet period in the game's history. . . Curt Schilling is close to qualifying for the next list up, although he's also close to dropping off the bottom if he finishes with a few bad seasons.

The rest of the guys in the under-2000 IP bin fall into three groups: relievers, starting with Dan Quisenberry at 3.08 and including John Franco, Bruce Sutter, John Hiller, Lee Smith, Kent Tekulve, and Doug Jones; very-short-career starters, from Smoky Joe Wood at 3.08 down through Jim Devlin (who was banned from baseball for throwing the 1877 pennant race), Harry Brecheen, Spud Chandler, and Dizzy Dean; and one active starter, Tim Hudson at 3.26.

Well, this would put the Mets one Mike Mussina acquisition from ensuring that no active pitcher wins 300 games . . .The fourth year for Pedro strikes me as the one year too many. I'm more encouraged by the fact that they're pursuing Delgado and Sexson, especially now that they wouldn't need to surrender draft choices to get Delgado (I'd rather have Sexson, although he may be close to signing with Seattle).

UPDATE: At least the Mets aren't doing anything nearly as stupid as trading Carlos Lee for Scott Podsednik. The mind staggers at that one.

SECOND UPDATE: It certainly looks like this is happening, given Larry Lucchino's email referring to Pedro's Red Sox tenure in the past tense.