Nationals Arm Race

Justin Verlander is one of the most important home-grown players in the 2012 playoffs. Photo unk via rumorsandrants.com

Every year I do a bit of “Team Construction” analysis to kind of gauge the trends in roster construction.  Last year’s post is here, and the links to the side have the underlying spreadsheet of player acquisition methods so you can see the pure details.  This topic was also covered in-depth by John Sickels on his minorleaguebaseball.com blog for another viewpoint.

Borrowing from last year’s post, there are four main ways teams can acquire players:

1. Draft: The player is with the original team that drafted him.  In the case of international free agents, if they’re signed as 16-year olds they are considered in this category as well (i.e., Ichiro Suzuki is not a developed player, but an international Free Agent).  It could be better defined as “Club developed players.”  Simple examples for the Nats: Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper.
2. Traded MLBers: The player was acquired by the team by virtue of trading an established MLB player.  Most of the time these days, this means the player was acquired as a prospect (since most trades seem to be of the prospect-for-established player kind).  Example for the Nats would be Michael Morse, who was acquired by our trading an established MLB player in Ryan Langerhans for Morse while he was still (essentially) a minor leaguer.
3. Traded Prospects: The player was acquired by the team by virtue of trading prospects.  This is essentially the reverse of #2.  The Nats key example is Gio Gonzalez.
4. Free Agent: The player was acquired in free agency.  This category also includes two other types of acquisitions: waiver claims and cash purchases.  These three categories are lumped together since all three indicate that a team has acquired a player with zero outlay in terms of development or prospects.  Examples for the Nats: Edwin Jackson, Adam LaRoche.

Here is the summary of roster construction and “Construction Strategy Category” that we’ll talk about next.  Note that I only count the “core players” on a team for this analysis.  The core players is defined as the 5-man starting rotation, the setup and closer, the 8 out-field players, and the DH for AL teams.  I didn’t extend this all the way to the 25-man roster, figuring that these core 15 players are the main reasons teams win and advance.  That and huge chunks of the bullpen and the bench are either fill-in FAs or draftees and it would skew the analysis of how teams really got to the playoffs.  Here’s the summary (the table is sorted by count of Draftees):

So, what are the four construction methods I’ve identified? Again borrowing from last year’s version of this post, they are (with this year’s examples).  The complication this year is that some of the 10 playoff teams don’t fall neatly into one specific category.

Method #1: Build from within 100%: (Cincinnati, Atlanta).   Atlanta, amazingly, didn’t use a single Free Agent among its core 15 this year.  They made a couple of key trades to acquire a few starters, but the rest of their lineup is home-grown draftees.  That may change next year as they try to replace Chipper Jones, Michael Bourn and possibly Brian McCann, who may leave via free agency.  Meanwhile Cincinnati has just a couple of free agents and mostly rely on guys they’ve grown as well.

Method #2: Ride your developed Core and use your prospects to acquire big names: (Washington, San Francisco and Detroit to an extent): The Nats have transformed themselves over just a couple of seasons, relying less on FAs to plug holes caused by an awful farm system to having most of their core team developed at home (See the table further below to follow the transformation of our team over the past few seasons).  Those spots they couldn’t depend on have been filled by trades (three guys acquired by flipping prospects for them; in addition to Gonzalez Kurt Suzuki and Tyler Clippard also count here).  San Francisco has seen their payroll skyrocket as they extend their home-grown talent, but for the most part they have stayed true to the team development concept.  Their one major Free Agent (Barry Zito) is notoriously one of the worst contracts in baseball and it is somewhat surprising to even see him on the post-season roster.  He wouldn’t be if Tim Lincecum was pitching in 2012 like he has regularly done in previous seasons.  Detroit was entirely in method #2 until they decided to spend money like the Yankees; we’ll revisit in #4.

Method #3: Go Young and grow up Strong (Baltimore, Oakland and Texas to an extent): Baltimore acquired a massive chunk of their rosters by flipping major leaguers for prospects and watching them blossom into a surprise playoff team.  Oakland has made a habit of getting rid of guys before they hit arbitration; fully 7 of their squad was acquired this way.  The difference is that Oakland has been forced to buy a big chunk of their core group on the FA market, depending on cast-offs like Brandon Inge and Jonny Gomes to plug leaks and get production on the cheap.  I’m guessing that Oakland will transform more into Category #1 as the vast amount of prospects they’ve landed lately continue to matriculate.  Lastly Texas was entirely in this category before they dropped major money on the likes of Adrian Beltre and Yu Darvish, transforming them into a spending power to go with their still-excellent farm system.

Method #4: Spend what it takes to win: (New York fully with St Louis, Texas and Detroit partially here): The Yankees are the class-A example of this method (along with Boston and the Dodgers frankly), but the spending that St. Louis, Texas and Detroit cannot be overlooked.  The Yankees more and more are depending on expensive FA purchases to replace what their farm system is not developing, and the problem is only being brought into more focus this off-season.  Their 3 primary starters are FA acquisitions, their biggest FA is looking like a contract catastrophe, and their developed guys are not stepping up and taking over major roles (especially on the pitching staff).  The other three teams mentioned here are mostly built on home-grown talent, but have spent so much money on the FA market lately that they are broaching into the upper echelons of MLB payroll.  St. Louis is almost entirely built from within (as noted by other columnists doing this same type of analysis) but still has depended on a couple of key FAs to advance as far as they have.

Conclusions:

• There’s no real formula to building a playoff team, as we see from the spread of the 10 teams among the four methods defined.
• I think its safe to say that the most difficult methods to depend on are #1 and #3.  You need to have a very good farm system to depend on the #1 method to work for you, and over the past few years only a couple of teams really have had success using this method (Atlanta and Tampa Bay).  Kansas City has tried #1 for years and has gone nowhere.  The #3 method is also frought with issues, since it requires a ton of patience from your fan base and may not be sustainable.  Would anyone be surprised if both Oakland and Baltimore collapsed next season?  Probably not; you really need to build on a base of players once you’ve established yourself as a good team and continue to augment, either through trade or through FAs.  But even that can be dangerous; just ask Philadelphia this year, owners of the 2nd biggest payroll in baseball and just a 3rd place team.
• Is Category #1 and #3 the same?  No, not really. #1 teams rely much more heavily on personally developed prospects, while #3 teams purposely set out to acquire prospects in trade to combine with their own development mis-fortunes.  If Baltimore had a better farm system, they wouldn’t have needed to jettison so many established MLBers to acquire prospects, and they’d probably be closer to a #2 team (a wealthy team who supplements developed players with key FAs, much like what Washington is doing).
• Oakland is really a unique case; they do develop players but get rid of them because of a self-imposed incredibly restrictive salary cap.  Imagine what Billy Beane could do with that team if he could have purchased just $30M of players on the open market (which would have still left Oakland in the bottom third of payroll).
• Buying your way to a team (method #4) can work, but only if you have nearly unlimited money and everything goes right for you.  There’s almost no excuse for a $175M payroll to get beat to the playoffs by a $55M payroll team (Oakland).  That is unless you overpay for poor FA targets, install the wrong manager and saddle yourself with the worst clubhouse in baseball.  In case you were wondering, the 2012 Boston Red Sox were a classic case of why money cannot buy happiness, and why unlimited funds do not necessarily guarantee playoff baseball.  The Angels are another example; owing most of their season’s turnaround and success to Mike Trout and his MLB minimum salary providing nearly 10 WAR despite having the 3rd largest payroll in baseball and having just purchased the games pre-emminent hitter in Albert Pujols.
• Frequent commenter Clark has a good point; classifying Mark Teixeira and Raul Ibanez as the same type of player (acquired via free agency) is a bit mis-leading.  Clearly a $150M player isn’t the same as a $1M player.  But, for the purposes of analyzing how much of your team is “bought” versus “developed” the point remains the same whether its a bargain basement guy or a $20M/year player.

So, if I had just purchased a new team, what construction method would I follow?  I guess it depends; if I thought I had a patient fan base, I’d probably do exactly what is going on in Houston.  I’d gut the MLB roster, trade every tradeable asset and start over payroll-wise.  I’d follow strategy #1 until I was at least competitive, and then i’d probably switch over to a #2 strategy or a #3 strategy, depending on just how good my developed players were.  You hope for #3; it implies you’ve got so much in-house talent that all you need to do is keep extending your key guys and you’ll keep winning.

I don’t think #4 is a sustainable way of building rosters.  The Yankees have gotten away with it for years, but only because they initially had a banner crop of developed players (the “core four”) to depend on up their spine.  Would anyone be surprised if the Yankees fail to make the playoffs next year?  Alex Rodriguez looks incredibly old, Derek Jeter just broke his ankle, they’re losing a number of hitters to FA and they only have a couple of starters locked up.  Where’s their starting pitching for 2013?  And what happens if they finally get hit with injuries to their rotation to the extent that Boston did this year?  I think this is why you see $80M payroll teams beating out $170M payroll teams all the time; teams get bloated, they over pay their own players and suddenly are old, inflexible and unable to adjust financially to buy what they need.

Lastly, here’s what the Nats roster has done over the past few seasons:

The team has been slowly replacing Free Agents with home-grown or acquired talent, and as we all know is well on its way towards a strong, home grown team.  This year’s core team only uses 3 pure FAs: Adam LaRoche, Jayson Werth and Edwin Jackson.  We could very well see LaRoche replaced outright with the home grown Tyler Moore, and if the team replaced Jackson with someone like John Lannan (not that we’ll possibly see that happen), we could be down to just one FA in the core squad.

What is Detwiler's role going to be in 2012? Photo Cathy T via nationalsdailynews.com

Another edition of mlb.com beat reporter Bill Ladson’s inbox, dated 1/9/12.

As always, I write my response before reading his, and sometimes edit questions for clarity.

Q: Will I be able to watch Bryce Harper in Syracuse this year, or will I have to drive to D.C.?

A: I think Harper starts in AA, moves up to AAA if (as we hope and expect) he starts the year hitting AA pitching well, and then debuts in Washington somewhere in the mid-late June time frame, so as to avoid hitting the dreaded Super-2 status in two year’s time.  Ladson points out what we all keep hearing; that Davey Johnson likes younger players and has a history of going with them early.  However, I don’t think he had to deal with arbitration issues and Super-2 implications back in the early 80s, so at some point the team management has to lay out the financial implications of calling him up too early and say, “Sorry he’s staying in the minors til he clears this hurdle.”

Q: Will there be a battle for the fifth spot now that Brad Peacock and Tom Milone are gone, or is the job Ross Detwiler’s to lose?

A: This is another question that keeps getting asked that I don’t get: John Lannan has been an underrated innings eater for this team for years and was tendered a contract for 2012.  He’s GOING to be in the rotation.  People who think for some reason there’s a rotation competition brewing in spring training are foolish; this team has 5 starters under contract, some for significant dollars or investment, and there’s just no room (barring injury) for anyone else.  Detwiler was the 5th starter favorite until the moment we acquired Gonzalez.  Now he’s clearly either trade bait or a long-man out of the pen.  Ladson still thinks there’s a rotation competition in spring training.  I think he’s nuts.  Technically Lannan has an option and could go down to make room for Detwiler … but do you want to have a $4.9M (his arbitration estimate at mlbtraderumors.com) pitcher in Syracuse??

Q: I’m not sure how you came up with [only] 85 [projected] wins [for the team in 2012] without Prince Fielder. The Nationals won 80 games last year and will have Strasburg for almost a full season, Zimmermann and adding Gio Gonzalez helps. Looking at last year’s rotation, how does that not add up to a 90-plus-win season and a Wild Card birth?

A: I think my initial win guess for 2012 was in the 85-88 games category.  On the face of it, this team should be 10 games improved easily.  But something always happens; you lose a key player to injury, someone under performs, etc.  So you can’t take the best case scenario all the time.  Ladson says the offense needs to improve to get > 85 wins.  Clearly.

Q: I like Prince Fielder, but he doesn’t seem right for the Nats. He can’t be a designated hitter in the National League, and tying up first base interferes with long-term plans for Michael Morse and perhaps even Zimmerman. Why is Fielder being linked to the Nats?

A: Its like deja vu; we’re answering the same questions over and over.  Small sentence answers: You don’t need to have a plus-plus defender at 1B; you need a hitter.  Why are we worried about where our gold-glove Third Baseman will be playing in 10 years time when he’s finally moving away from 3b?   Brooks Robinson played 144 games and won a gold glove (the last of his 16 consecutive awards) when he was 38.  Morse?  Lets find out if he’s more than a one-year wonder before talking about needing to clear room for him to play for the next 5 years as well.  Ladson points out that the rumors fly because Boras works well with the Nats.  Lots will clear up in the next couple of weeks.

Q: How about Raul Ibanez coming off the bench on a one-year deal? He can play one of the corner outfield spots, be a big bat off the bench and help Jayson Werth teach the game to Washington’s young outfielders.

A: Ibanez was washed up last year, both offensively and defensively.  There are better alternatives.  Ladson agrees, but notes he’s been wrong before about the capabilities of bats off the bench.

Heeeee's back! Photo: AP via lehighvalleylive.com

Talk about a shock.  Everyone in the baseball world had Cliff Lee going to the Yankees (with a small minority believing that the lack of income taxes in Texas would keep him with the Rangers).  Now, news has broken that Lee is returning to the Phillies in a relatively affordable deal (all things considered).  5years, $120 (average annual value of $24M) with a 6th year easily attained.  He turned down longer deals from New York (reportedly 6years $132M with a 7th year player option at $16M) and Texas (a similar 6year deal with player option for 7th) to return to Philly, where he really enjoyed the clubhouse culture and the city.

Immediate thoughts (echoed in texts to Philadelphia friends earlier today):

1. The Phillies are *really* stacked.  A rotation where Roy Oswalt is your 4th starter??  That’s sick.  Though they’ll probably line up the rotation to go R-L (Halladay, Lee, Oswalt, Hamels).  Their 5th starter is now either Blanton or Kendrick, meaning they have spare parts to trade to teams needing pitching.
2. Lee joins a team that won 97 games last year and significantly improves the rotation.  Does this mean the Phillies are on their way to 105-106 wins?  Perhaps; Lee is such an upgrade over the starter he’s basically replacing in the rotation (Jamie Moyer), but the Phillies have lost Jayson Werth in the middle of their order.  Ibanez isn’t getting any younger and its no guarantee super-stud prospect Dominic Brown can provide the offensive replacement they need.  But, baseball is becoming a pitcher’s game and the Phillies just bought the biggest arm out there.
3. Phillies GM Ruben Amaro re-acquires the same guy he mortgaged his upper farm system for two years ago.  Only this time for no prospects lost (just his 1st round draft pick).  I know that nobody will be saying this, but clearly the return of Lee means that the Phillies screwed up royally by letting him go in the first place.  Luckily nobody will care as long as they’re still winning, still making the playoffs and still competing for the world series.  And, in the end it may not matter because reports from scouts say that the Phillies lower farm teams (rookie and low-A) are stacked with talent and the team will naturally replace some of these aging free agents (guys like Polanco, Ibanez, perhaps even Victorino) with cheaper alternatives and keep payroll in check.
4. The Yankees are in seriously big trouble.  Their entire off-season depended on upgrading a very vulnerable rotation with Lee.  Right now their rotation has one sure thing (Sabathia), one retirement question mark (Pettitte), one promising rookie with little track record (Hughes), one possible massive FA bust (Burnett) and … who knows?  I don’t think a trade for Greinke or Garza is possible for the Yankees; Greinke may not be the best fit in NY and Tampa may not be wise to trade Garza intra-division.  Plus, do the Yankees even have prospects worthy of tempting these two teams?  Joe Lemire posted very similar thoughts to mine vis-a-vis the yankees today as well.
5. Lee’s contract, tacked onto the massive contracts for Howard and Halladay may very well serve as a boat anchor for this team in a few years.  I’ve posted in the past about free agent pitcher contract values and clearly a $24M/year AAV is going to be incredibly difficult to earn.  Even if Lee wins 20 games in every season of the contract the Philles are still not getting good value on their money.  Cot’s site isn’t fully updated for even Howard’s extension but the Phillies right now have about $80M committed in 2013 to FOUR players (Howard at $20M, Halladay $20M, Lee $24M and Utley $15M).  That’s not exactly a lot of flexibility of one of those guys gets badly injured.

Since this is a Nats blog, how does this affect us?  Besides the obvious (the Phillies clearly will be that much more tough to beat for a divisional title for the next few years), this move means the Nats may have a much tougher time acquiring Greinke or Garza.  Both Texas and New York now will bet the farm on those two starters, and the Nats will not be willing to match the prospect drain that Kansas City and Tampa Bay (respectively) will be demanding in return.

And lastly the really obvious; competing in the NL East just got that much harder for this team.  If the Phillies are going to act like the Yankees in acquiring high-end FA an Payroll … the Lerners better start acting more like Boston and less like Baltimore.  $60M in payroll isn’t going to cut it anymore; try $120M.  The Werth signing in many ways seemed like a desperation signing, a quick attempt to regain some fan interest in this town and offset the loss of Adam Dunn.  But Werth alone isn’t going to help this team.  We need more hitting, better pitching, better players.  Honestly we really just need time to get our high-end prospects though the system … but can we wait until 2013 to compete?

The team is entering its 7th year in Washington, a team notorious for NOT supporting its professional teams unless they’re successful.  Baseball isn’t like football, where national TV contracts and salary caps essentially mean a team can compete equally whether they’re in New York or Kalamazoo.  In baseball you have to generate your own revenue and make your own luck.  You have to spend money or spend time (and risk alienating the entire fan base) while getting better.  For the Nats, who wasted 3 years of good will and a brand new stadium being stingy and thinking that the product on the field didn’t matter … they have no choice.  They need to be successful NOW to stem the flow of season ticket cancellations and attempt to be relevant in this town.