The High Price of Going Home
August 26, 2003
The Padres are making great strides to try to field a division winner
when they open their new ballpark next year. They hope they made
a step in that direction today by trading left-handed starter Oliver
Perez, outfielder Jason Bay and a minor league pitcher named Cory
Stewart for Brian Giles. Many will laud this deal as a steal for
the Padres. After all, they are getting an outfielder who has
been one of the most productive hitters in baseball in the last five
years. But I have to wonder if this trade is not a case of
closing the barn door too late. The Giles the Padres wanted was
the guy that the Pirates traded for five years ago. The one they
may have traded for might be a very different player.
From 1999 until 2002, Giles was quite probably the second most
productive hitter in the National League. He averaged 37 homers
and 110 RBI and 1.040 OPS during those years despite having very little
talent around him to help bolster his numbers. However, this
year, Giles has been considerably less productive despite being on a
better offensive squad. He is currently on pace for 20 homers, 90
RBI and a .951 OPS.
The Pirates, on the other hand, got a 22-year old lefty starter who is
24th in the NL in strikeouts despite spending a month and a half in AAA
this season. At his current rate and had he spent the entire
season
in the majors, he would be 4th in the NL in strikeouts. His 10.22
strikeouts/9 IP is the 8th best in major league history for a 22 year
old, behind such stars as Kerry Wood, Dwight Gooden, Mark Prior, Sandy
Koufax and Sam McDowell. While it's true his ERA currently stands
at an ungainly 5.38, most of the damage was done before he was sent
down after the first month of the season. Since his promotion,
his ERA has been 4.36. Remove 3 awful starts - on July 12
vs St. Louis, July 17 vs Arizona and August 15 vs Florida - and his ERA
drops to 3.09. Young pitchers are notoriously inconsistent, but
if the Pirates get a left-handed flamethrower they can count on for
good/great outings in 77% of his starts, I'd say they got a pretty good
deal. There has been some concern about injury risk with
Perez as he has thrown a lot of pitches for someone so young.
However, this is something he has always done. Last year, for
instance, the Padres forbade him from pitching winter ball, concerned
that he might wear out his arm, or worse. But his desire to pitch
was so strong that they finally relented and let him pitch under the
condition that he only pitch in relief. He may yet end up under
the surgeons knife, but it's looking more and more like he's just one
of those guys with an incredibly resilient arm.
Regardless, it's rare that a pitcher with this kind of strikeout
ability gets traded at such a young age. This is Perez' line for
this season in the majors so far, his line in AAA, and what he's done
since his promotion from AAA:
Season G GS
IP H
ER
HR BB SO W
L ERA WHIP K/9
2003 (MAJ) 19 19 103.2 103
62 20 65 117
4 7 5.38 1.621 10.22
2003 (AAA) 8 8
47.2 44 16 6
12 48 3
3 3.02 1.175 9.06
2003 (SP)
13 13 76.1
66 37 12 41
92 3 4 4.36
1.402 10.85
The last promising strikeout pitcher who was traded this young (just
after his 22nd birthday) had this pitching line before he was traded:
Season G
GS IP
H ER HR BB
SO W L ERA
WHIP K/9
19??
65 2
107.0 76 31
5 57 119 10 5
2.61
1.243 10.01
I was struck by the similarities in their innings pitched, walk and
strikeout rates. Of course, there is a significant disparity in
the number of hits allowed and home runs allowed, but some of that
could be due to team defense, bullpen support, the park they pitch in,
and the way that they were used in the games they pitched. Other
comparable pitchers to Perez in both strikeout rate and
strikeout-to-walk rate at the same age are Kerry Wood, Dwight Gooden,
Mark Prior, Tom Hall, Sandy Koufax, Bill McCool, Ken Brett and Rick
Ankiel.
But it wasn't just Perez the Padres gave up. Jason Bay has
emerged as a very good outfield prospect this season after laboring
under the "potential" label for several years. How good?
Well, here is what Brian Giles did as a 24-year old hitter in AAA with
a
brief call-up to the majors back in 1995.
Batter
G AB R
H 2B 3B HR
RBI BB SO
SB CS AVG
OBP SLG
Giles (AAA)
123 413 67 128
18 8 15
67 54 40
7 3 .310
.395 .501
Giles (MAJ) 6 9
6 5 0
0 1 3
0 1 0
0 .556 .556 .889
Giles (T) 129
422 73
133 18 8
16 70 54
41 7 3
.315 .398 .528
And this is what 24-year old Jason Bay has done this season at AAA
with a brief call-up to the majors and what his numbers would be if
they were pro-rated to the same amount of playing time that Giles got
at the same age.
Batter G
AB R H
2B 3B HR RBI
BB SO SB CS
AVG OBP
SLG
Bay (AAA)
91 307 64
93 11 1
20 59 55
71 23 4
.303 .410 .541
Bay (MAJ) 3 8
2 2 1
0 1 2
1 1 0
0 .250 .400
.750
Bay (T) 94 315
66 95 12 1
21 61
56 72 23
4 .302 .409 .546
Bay (p) 129
422 88
127 16 1
28 82 75
96 31 5
.302 .409 .546
It's true that Bay has had the benefit of playing in the hitter
friendly Pacific Coast League, but his home park in Portland has played
very sympathetically for pitchers over the last several years. So
the power numbers aren't as exaggerated as one might believe at first
glance.
I am reminded of a similar trade made 13 years ago. The Baltimore
Orioles felt they were very close to being a contender, so they traded
3 relatively young players for first baseman Glenn Davis with the hope
that it would put them over the top. For those who don't
remember, Glenn Davis was a very good hitter from
1986-1989, who put up surprisingly good power numbers despite playing
in the Astrodome, a notoriously tough park for hitters. He had a
down year in 1990 and was traded to Baltimore for 26-year old Steve
Finley, 24-year old Pete Harnisch and an
inconsistent 24-year old right-hander named Curt Schilling.
Davis's bat completely disappeared in Baltimore, in part due to neck
and rib cage injuries. The three players the Orioles traded away
obviously went on to have pretty good careers. Without this
trade, the O's
might have battled the Yankees and Braves for the title of best team of
the 90s. Anyway, here is what Davis did before he was traded and
the year after.
Glenn Davis
Year Ag Tm Lg
G AB R H 2B 3B HR
RBI SB CS BB SO BA
OBP SLG OPS+
1986 25 HOU NL 158
574 91 152 32 3 31 101 3 1
64 72 .265 .344 .493 132
1987 26 HOU NL 151 578 70 145 35 2
27 93 4 1 47 84
.251 .310 .458 104
1988 27 HOU NL 152 561 78 152 26 0
30 99 4 3 53 77
.271 .341 .478 138
1989 28 HOU NL 158 581 87 156 26 1
34 89 4 2 69 123 .269
.350 .492 142
1990 29 HOU NL 93
327 44 82 15 4 22 64 8
3 46 54 .251 .357 .523 143
1991 30 BAL AL 49 176 29 40 9
1 10 28 4 0 16 29
.227 .307 .460 110
And here is what Giles has done recently:
Brian Giles
Year Ag Tm Lg G AB R
H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB
SO BA OBP SLG
OPS+
1999 28 PIT NL 141 521 109
164 33 3 39 115 6 2 95
80 .315 .418 .614 157
2000 29 PIT NL 156 559 111 176 37 7 35 123
6 0 114 69 .315 .432 .594
158
2001 30 PIT NL 160 576 116 178 37 7 37
95 13 6 90 67 .309 .404
.590 153
2002 31 PIT NL 153 497 95 148 37 5 38
103 15 6 135 74 .298 .450
.622 173
2003 32 PIT NL 133 491 89 147 38 5 20 89
0 4 108 61 .299 .430 .521 126
I am not necessarily saying the Padres made a bad deal.
Usually a team has to offer quality in order to get it. But they
are taking a big risk on both sides of this equation: they traded 2
players with considerable upside for a player who might very well be on
the downside of his career, and possibly no better than the outfield
prospect they gave up in the deal. And with the troubles the
Padres have had with injuries for the last 5 years, each year setting
new standards for futility in staying healthy, one has to wonder what's
in store for Giles and whether they will miss the depth of having Bay
to call on.
On the plus side, even if Giles repeats this year's production in 2004
and 2005, the Padres will have a good player at a fairly reasonable
price in terms of salary. And if he rebounds to previous
levels, they probably ended up with a bargain regardless of what Perez
and Bay do because even players with great potential often fail to
become as productive as Giles has been in his career. But players
who show signs of a decline in skills tend to continue the decline at
this age rather than reverse the trend. There are always
exceptions and it's clear the Padres are betting the best of their farm
that they got one.
Oh, and that other strikeout pitcher that was traded so young?
Before the 1994 season, he
was traded for a second basemen that was supposed to put the Dodgers
over the top. The rest, as they say, is baseball history.
His
name: Pedro Martinez. So could Perez become a left-handed Pedro
Martinez? Probably not. But becoming the NL version of
Johan Santana isn't out of the question.