Nationals Arm Race

"… the reason you win or lose is darn near always the same – pitching.” — Earl Weaver

Archive for November, 2010

Greinke Trade Question

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Zack Greinke at photo day 2010. Photo by Harry How/Getty Images North America

I have kind of a love-hate relationship with Keith Law sometimes.  I think he’s a pretty darn good talent evaluator and there’s a reason he had a front office job (and now the scouting analysis job).  He even once responded to an article follow-up email I sent him where I thought he was bashing Bowden’s moves a bit to heavily (ironic in that i’m now clearly on the anti-Bowden track as he was all along).  However, I think he over-analyzes and is a bit TOO stat heavy sometimes, and I believe he over-values certain players.

In yesterday’s chat on ESPN (insider only, apologies), there were a few Washington related questions.  Here was one that I couldn’t quite believe though:

Joseph (Sacramento, CA) asks, “J.Zimmermann, Espinosa, Burgess, Detwiler for Greinke? Does this work for both sides?”

Klaw answer: “It certainly works for Washington.”

Jordan Zimmermann, Espinosa, Burgess and Detwiler for Greinke straight up.  I say, no way.  I have to disagree with Law here.

That’s trading your current #2 pitcher, your anticipated starting 2nd baseman, your best OF prospect not named Bryce Harper, and a prospect lefty starting pitcher/former 1st round draft choice (who may not have great MLB stats but is a lefty who throws mid 90s) for a potential #1 starter.  I say Potential because, if you look at Greinke’s career numbers they’re not exactly overwhelming.  Yes he had a phenomenal 2009.  What happened in 2010?  Era+ of 100 means he was MLB average.  The years before he was a good but not overpowering starter on a bad team (putting up ERA+ figures of 126 and 124; good but not great).   There’s no promise of Greinke returning to that form (though the move to the NL will certainly help).  Is he a Ron Guidry or Rick Sutcliffe pitcher (guys who had one fabulous year and then came back down to earth)?

I think I’d be interested in Greinke (who wouldn’t?) but at a lesser price.  I’d trade Zimmermann and Espinosa for him.  Justification; Zimmermann is indeed a #2 starter quality guy but would be expendable with Greinke in the fold.  Espinosa shows great promise and I like him, but we also have a couple of high-profile 2nd basemen prospects in the minors that would feature soon (Lombardozzi or Kobernus).  Perhaps I’m as guilty as Law in overvaluing our own prospects, but to me Greinke isn’t good enough to merit the trade.  If it was a better “Ace,” someone with a repeated track record of success (Felix Hernandez, Lincecum, Halladay), the haul would be easily worth it.

But for Greinke, all 4 of those guys is too much.

Nats GM for a day Part 1: the Arbitration cases

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Photo Courtesy of Jeff Saffelle/Nats320 Blog

MLB’s beat writer Bill Ladson kicked off the National’s offseason with a post summarizing the Nat’s major off season personnel decisions (free agents to be and Arbitration candidates).  The Nats have a relatively large number of arbitration decisions to make, as well as a few free agents.

Next up, the Arbitration cases.  We have a number of them.  In relative order of salary expectations:

Player What Should Washington Do?/What WILL We do?
Willingham, Josh Tender; valuable trade chip in 2011.
Wang, Chien-Ming Non-tender and negotiate one year deal (ala Olsen in 2010).  Can’t pay arb raise for zero production in 2010, despite what he’s capable of.
Olsen, Scott Non-Tender; usefulness to the team in terms of production and character at an end.
Burnett, Sean Tender: and please don’t fight him for a few dollars after his great 2010
Flores, Jesus Tender: may end up being trade bait to a needy team since we have Ramos and Pudge plus Norris coming up.
Nieves, Wil Non-Tender; we’re finally after 2 years in a decent catcher position in the franchise.
Walker, Tyler Non-Tender; perhaps offer ML deal with ST invite.  Other arms that can do what he did in the system for less.  11/4/10 update: Nats have flat out released him.
Lannan, John Tender: Nats #2 starter in 2011.
Gonzalez, Alberto Tender: Achieved super2 status.  Tough call though since he wants to leave and get a starting opportunity.  Nats need him as a backup for at least one more season though til guys like Lombardozzi are ready.
Slaten, Doug Tender: great job in 2010 as loogy.
Peralta, Joel Tender: Despite being FA, only has 4+ yrs of MLB service.   Was fantastic for us in 2010 and need to keep

Amazingly Ladson thinks Willingham is a non-tender candidate.  Uh, why would we possibly do that?  He was as solid a #5 hitter as there was when he was healthy, he’s a great clubhouse guy and contributes well above his salary.  Other clear tenders include Burnett, Flores and Lannan.

Olsen, Nieves and Walker are clearly guys that we do NOT tender contracts to.  Each for different but well documented reasons.  11/6/10 Update: Olsen assigned to AAA and refused the assignment, becoming a FA.

The difficult decisions lay with the other arbitration candidates.  With Wang i’d try to appeal to his (agent’s) sense of fairness and pre-negotiate an incentive laden contract, based on the lack of a single game played for his $2M in salary last year.  Perhaps a contract of $1M plus incentives based on number of starts that push the total value to $3M if he makes more than 25 starts.  Alberto Gonzalez has apparently reached Super2 Status and we a may have an arbitration case coming, if only because Gonzalez has stated he wants a chance to start.  The problem Alberto doesn’t seem to realize is that he’s an awful hitter, putting up a 57 ops+ in about 200 ABs last year.  He’s a classic good field-no hit dominican middle infielder and I doubt he finds many suitors on the trade market.  Lastly we come to Slaten and Peralta.  Both guys were minor league FAs for us in 2010 and both pitched lights out after getting called up to fill in for injuries and poor performers (basically replacing English and Bergmann).  Are they worth tendering and paying more money or do you cut them loose and take your chances with the next crop of minor leaguers coming up?  I say stick with the known (i.e., a fantastic bullpen last year) and bring them back.

Next up, two guys who may or may not have achieved Arbitration status.  Cots and baseball-america don’t necessarily agree.

Chico, Matt Not sure if he’s truly achieved Arbitration status yet.  Cots says yes.  If Arb eligible, Tender a contract.  AAA rotation
Morse, Michael May not have achieved Arbitration yet.  If Arb eligible, absolutely Tender.  MLB utility infielder.

Even though Chico seems like he’s buried in AAA, he’s still a lefty starter with a somewhat decent track record who gave us one decent spot-start this year.  Morse I’m more excited for.  I believe that Morse could be a hidden gem of a starter for us if given the time.  He hit 15 homers in 293 ABs, which projects to 30 homers over a full season.  He’s athletic (played shortstop in HS and in his MLB debut season) and can clearly play all around the diamond.  Clearly he can play first base since he’s 6’5″ and is a reformed middle infielder.  If Dunn walks, I can easily see Morse playing 1st and Bernadina playing RF (barring no FA pickups).

Next up; the Free Agents…

Giants win continues a “Best Team not Winning the World Series” Trend…

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Photo by Carlos Avila Gonzalez / San Francisco Chronicle

The SF Giants finished with the 5th best record in the majors.  Clearly they were an elite team and won their division, but finished the season five games worse than the same Phillies that they dispatched in 6 games in the NLCS.

Their victory in the World Series continues an interesting trend in Baseball, and in most of the other major sports in this country for that matter, where the team with the best record in the regular season does not win the year end title.  I call it the “wild card” effect on professional sports.  Each major sport has a playoff structure that allows in “wild card” teams that have a chance to win the year end title despite not even being able to win their own division throughout the regular season.

Here’s a quick rundown of the best Baseball teams in the regular season (by overall record) versus who won the WS.  I’ve got the data going back to 1990, a convenient starting point since the Wild Card was instituted in 1994.  Bolded means that the best team won the WS:

year MLB WS Winner MLB Best Reg Season Team per league
2010 San Francisco Philadelphia, Tampa Bay
2009 New York New York, LA Dodgers
2008 Philadelphia LA Angels, Chicago Cubs
2007 Boston Boston, Arizona
2006 St. Louis NY Yankees, NY Mets
2005 Chicago WS St. Louis, Chicago WS
2004 Boston St. Louis, NY Yankees
2003 Florida (Miami) NY Yankees, Atlanta
2002 Anaheim (LA) NY Yankees, Atlanta
2001 Arizona (Phoenix) Seattle, Houston
2000 New York SF Giants, Chi WS
1999 New York Atlanta, NY Yankees
1998 New York NY Yankees, Atlanta
1997 Florida (Miami) Atlanta, Baltimore
1996 New York Cleveland, Atlanta
1995 Atlanta Cleveland, Atlanta
1994 (no WS, player strike) Montreal, NY Yankees
1993 Toronto Atlanta, Toronto
1992 Toronto Atlanta, Toronto
1991 Minnesota (Minneapolis) Pittsburgh, Minnesota
1990 Cincinnati Oakland, Pittsburgh

Since 1990, only THREE times has the team with the best regular season record won the World Series.  The fantastic 1998 NY Yankees team, the 2007 Boston Red Sox and last year’s 2009 Yankees team.  This year, the Rays fell to Texas and the Phillies fell to the Giants, meaning the two best teams in the league didn’t even make the World Series.  This “wild card” effect resulted in one of the regular season teams ever (the 2001 Seattle Mariners) not even reaching the World Series (falling at the hands of the Yankees, who then lost to the wild card Diamondbacks).  Several times wild card teams have won the WS out right (Florida in 97 and the 04 Red Sox as other examples), meaning that our WS champion would not have even qualified for the playoffs just a few years earlier.  For some reason I find this troubling.

Are the other major sports even worse?   Both the NBA and NHL allow in more than half the league’s teams to the playoffs.  In the MLS, half the teams qualify and then play a “home-and-home” first round of playoff games, essentially negating any home-field advantage earned by winning your division (ridiculous frankly; why have any value to the regular season?)   Football seems to have a pretty well-regarded playoff system right now but the imbalanced talent in the 2010 season may result in deserving AFC 10-6 teams being left out in favor of 8-8 NFC teams.  Here’s a quick breakdown of our major leagues and the percentage of teams allowed into the playoffs.

Ttl Teams # Playoff teams Pct
mlb 30 8 26.67
nfl 32 12 37.5
nba 30 16 53.33
nhl 30 16 53.33
mls 16 8 50

Baseball still has the stringiest playoff-qualifications, even post 1994 wild card expansion.  Now Bud Selig wants to add in more wild card teams in what is clearly a money-grab for his fellow greedy owners (a third of whom are basically refusing to field a competitive team and are sucking in revenue sharing dollars like a trust fund kid).

So, how many times do the other leagues crown their best regular season team as champs?  The answer may surprise you.  Here’s a similar table going back to1990 for all the major sports.   Here’s the summary.  Since 1990:

  • 3 times the best Baseball Team won the World series
  • 6 times the best Football Team won the Super Bowl
  • 8 times the best Basketball Team won the NBA championship
  • 5 times the best Hockey Team won the Stanley Cup

How’s that for parity?  I used to knock the NHL for the proclivity of #8 teams knocking off #1 seeds in the playoffs (something that’s only happened twice in the NBA).  The NHL is infamous for having teams “built for the playoffs” and it not really being a surprise when a team like last year’s Washington Capitals lose in the first round of the playoffs.  However, look at baseball.  Only three times in 20 years has the best team won the World Series.  This fact gives credence to Billy Beane’s comment that the playoffs are indeed a crapshoot and GMs should build towards making the playoffs and then crossing their fingers.

Anyway you slice it, the Giants earned this World Series victory by beating the best.  I would have personally loved to see a NY Yankees-Philadelphia series (as would have every TV executive at Fox) and it would have crowned a champion that truly was one of the two best teams this year in the regular season.  But this series was definitely entertaining in its own right and featured some great pitching (the topic of my next blog posting…)

Written by Todd Boss

November 2nd, 2010 at 5:34 pm

Posted in Baseball in General

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