The Winter Meetings
December 7, 2005
The winter meetings have been pretty active this year, with some
interesting transactions taking place. In no particular order,
here's what I have so far:
If any team can afford to pay $6 million for a middle reliever it's the
Yankees. And getting an arm as impressive as Farnsworth's is
certainly a coup for them. What I don't get is why Farnsworth
would fumble away all his leverage to become a set-up man. Last
year he proved he could close, both in Detroit and Atlanta. He's
not gonna close for the Yanks. Given what BJ Ryan got from
Toronto, he could have held out for a bigger payday. Ryan only
had slightly more closing experience and got nearly $10 million a
year. There was the concern that Farnsworth doesn't have the
intestinal fortitude to be a full-time closer, but is being the closer
in someplace like Detroit any less stressful than being the set-up guy
for a legend who has an eternal get out of jail free card in New
York? Ask Juan Acevedo or Paul Quantrill or Jeff Nelson how
forgiving the New York media can be after a blown lead. If
Farnsworth succeeds early, he'll be glad he came to New York because
he'll have a good shot to play in the postseason every year. But
if he struggles, he'll soon wish he had signed somewhere, anywhere else.
Let's assume for a second that Hector Carrasco finally figured it out
last year. His arm has always drawn raves; he just could never
seem to reign it in. But supposing that the light went on last
year and what we saw - 88 innings of 2.04 ERA, 1.10 WHIP pitching - is
the real deal. Two aspects of his performance that would suggest
it might be real are his K/BB ratio, which was the second best of his
career, and his G/F ratio which was the lowest of his career. It
could be that his repertoire is better suited to pitching up in the
zone, inducing flyballs rather than groundballs. In a big park
with athletic outfielders, that's not a bad way to go, especially if
he's not afraid to pitch to contact instead of nibbling. Make the
hitter hit his way on and force him to crush it to get it out.
That's what Carrasco did. What we don't know is whether a) the
lesson was learned too late (he is 36 years old), and/or b) he will
continue to have confidence in the gameplan in a park that's slightly
more hitter friendly. It's an interesting gamble on the Angels'
part, especially considering that he'll have to be good for two more
years.
There has been some mention about the ownership situation in Washington
preventing the Nats from going after some of the big name free agent
starters, but I don't see it as being a huge impediment this
year. As long as RFK can turn Esteban Loaiza and Hector Carrasco
into $5 million starters, the Nats can pretty much go bottom fishing
for starters and feel pretty confident that they'll get quality
innings. I wouldn't be surprised to see any one of Jose Lima,
Pedro Astacio, Scott Elarton, Jason Johnson, Ramon Ortiz and/or Brett
Tomko signed for a couple million a year contracts and be just as
serviceable as Loaiza was. Elarton, Tomko and Lima seem
especially well suited due to their flyball tendencies. This will
be the Nationals' advantage over other teams in that they will be able
to sign cheap pitchers and RFK will make them look pretty decent.
They still need another stud at the top of the rotation if they hope to
make any playoff noise, but really their most urgent need is for an
outfield bopper. Perhaps they could package some of their spare
parts (Terrmel Sledge? Marlon Byrd? Ryan Church?) for
Milton Bradley, who plays pretty good defense and was in the midst of a
breakout season when his season ended with injury. If Frank
Robinson can turn Jose Guillen into a model citizen (or at least close
to one) surely he can do the same with Bradley.
There is one transaction the Nationals could make that would improve
their offense by at least 25% and wouldn't cost them much more than the
major league minimum salary: they should hire a new medical
staff. The team lost more days to the DL than
any team in baseball. No Washington player appeared in more than
150 games and only four appeared in as many as 140. You can blame
Cristian Guzman all you want for the failings of the offense, but when
a team has as many guys on the DL for as long as they had them last
year, there's simply no way they can compete over a 6-month
season. Here's my question: if there are enough quality doctors
in DC to have kept Strom Thurmond alive for 2000 years, why can't they
find someone who can keep Nick Johnson in the line-up for 150
games? I'm pretty sure some of those guys are available.
Not sure why the A's are interested in trading Zito. Sure he's
eligible to make more money after the upcoming season, but he is the
only starting pitcher in baseball to make every start since 2001.
That's about as close to
Brakeman
Jack Taylor as it gets in the 21st
century. Since 2001, he's made 174 starts. Behind him are
Greg Maddux (172), Livan Hernandez (170), Mark Buerhle (169), Tom
Glavine (169). Any of those guys other than Zito win a Cy Young
award during that span? No? Of the starters who have had at
least 150 starts since 2001 (average 30 per season), only Randy
Johnson, Tim Hudson and Roger Clemens have posted an ERA lower than
Zito's over that span. So not only is he the most dependable
starter in baseball, but he's also been one of the best. That
doesn't sound easily replaceable to me. This is the kind of
pitcher, especially since he'll ne only 28 this year, that you sign to
a three- or four-year deal before he becomes a free agent.
However, the A's did trade for a reasonably good pitcher who has yet to
match his minor league numbers, but under the right circumstances could
emerge as a nice sleeper. The Blue Jays became the second
organization to give up on Chad Gaudin, following in the Devil Rays
footsteps. That's not exactly a glowing endorsement. Gaudin
features an excellent slider and a decent fastball, but has not yet
mastered a change-up that would allow him to see batters two, three and
four times per game. I guess what amazes me about him getting
shipped off again is that he's only 23 years old. Eventually,
some team is going to figure out a change-up grip for him and when they
do they'll have a nice #3 starter.
In other Bay area news, the Giants shipped off LaTroy Hawkins to the
Orioles in exchange for Steve Kline. Hawkins bounced back after a
slow first half; Kline never really got out of the gate in
Baltimore. More alarming is that Kline failed to get lefties out
last year - they hit .317 with 5 homers in just 24 innings. On
the plus side, he was somewhat effective against right-handers so it
could have been just a bad run of luck. His numbers will be
helped by the change of ballparks. As for Hawkins, he'll either
set-up Chris Ray or whichever lackluster free-agent closer the Orioles
are currently considering until Chris Ray is ready.
The Reds cleared their apparent log-jam by dealing Sean Casey to the
Pirates for Dave Williams. I'm not sure I see what all the hubbub
is about with Williams; he hasn't had a strong full-season performance
since he was a 21-year old in Single-A. That was six years
ago. More puzzling is the fact that last year he posted a G/F
ratio of 0.90 and has a career rate of 1.05. Don't the Reds
realize that means he's a flyball pitcher and that they just traded
their most popular player for a poor man's Eric Milton? Congrats
to Pirates GM Dave Littlefield for adding a potent left-handed bat to a
line-up that was overly right-handed. Casey's numbers last year
don't look great, but he's just a year removed from a season in which
he hit 70 extra base hits.
The Cubs have now done their part to help the Marlins cut costs by
trading prospects for centerfielder and leadoff man Juan Pierre.
They'll still need to find some help in the outfield unless Corey
Patterson has a new outlook on life. Now that they finally have
someone who can lead off, the pressure will be off Patterson to focus
on getting on base. Without that burden, maybe he will
finally take to instruction that can help him realize his considerable
potential. Although he's been written off as a non-entity in most
media circles,
Matt Murton should do fine in left field as long as Dusty Baker doesn't
have another terminal bout of veteran-itis. Pierre's range isn't
as good as the general perception. In fact, only Pierre had a
worse range factor than Patterson among major league regular
centerfielders last year. Murton's range also ranks low, so the
Cubs will still have some problems running flyballs down. But
adding Pierre was the right choice for bolstering their sagging
offense.
The Mets have again taken advantage of the Marlin's largesse and dealt
prospects for catcher Paul LoDuca. Well, that's how it looks on
the surface. But the reality is that Paul LoDuca, at least from
the numbers, doesn't appear to be much of an upgrade over Mike
Piazza. Sure, he hit for a higher average (.283 vs .251) and
posted a higher on base (.334 vs .326) , but Piazza's much higher
slugging percentage (.452 vs. 380) offsets that completely. On
defense, it also appears to be a wash as LoDuca has nearly the same
catcher's ERA as Piazza (3.80 vs 3.89) and neither one is even average
at throwing out baserunners (21% vs 11%). Even then, LoDuca's
advantage is offset by Piazza's surehandedness; he committed only 2
errors last year as opposed to LoDuca's 8. So basically the Mets
gave the Marlins prospects for a guy they already had.
The Padres finally found a taker for Sean Burroughs: the Devil
Rays. In return, the Devil Rays finally found a taker for Dewan
Brazelton. Frankly, I think the Padres are taking the bigger risk
here as Brazelton has never been dominant at any level; at least
Burroughs showed potential in the minors. However, neither is
likely for immediate stardom. The change in parks will help
Brazelton some, but Tampa wasn't exactly a hitter's paradise. A
bigger factor in his success will be not having to face the DH.
However, that won't matter too much if he keep walking hitters at his
current rate. Burroughs will probably benefit from playing on
turf; his line drive swing will turn more of those singles into doubles
on the faster surface.
I was somewhat surprised by the Dodgers' aggressiveness in bringing
Rafael Furcal into the fold, especially since Cesar Izturis is a better
gloveman at short. True, they needed someone to play there while
he recovers from arm surgery, but signing a guy for three years when
you only need him for three months sorta seems like overkill. The
plan is that Jeff Kent will move to first and Izturis will move to
second when he's ready to return. This may indicate a couple of
things: 1) they have little or no confidence in either Hee Seop Choi or
James Loney to develop at as starting first basemen, and 2) they don't
think Izturis is a viable long term regular, probably because of his
low on base percentage. They're probably right in both
cases..
The Indians signed Paul Byrd for a couple of years, a move predicated
on the likely loss of free agent Kevin Millwood. Byrd should fit
well in the Indians' scheme. Cleveland was one of the toughest
parks in the AL for hitters and especially tough on flyballs which
plays to Byrd's strengths: his G/F ratio last year was 0.89, still
below his career average of 0.93. The Tribe has an athletic
outfield to chase balls down and Byrd's right-handed offspeed
repertoire offers a different look from the left-handed power arms of
Cliff Lee and CC Sabathia and Jake Westbook's sinkers. By no
means will he replace Millwood, but he should provide enough
quality that the difference can be made up by the continuing maturity
of Lee and Sabathia.
The biggest coup this week has to be Deivi Cruz and Gary Bennett
signing with the Cardinals. OK, so maybe it was the second
biggest. To be honest, I haven't been impressed with either, even
as bench parts. I watched Cruz up close for a season in Baltimore
and for part of a season last year, and Bennett last year in Washington
and frankly, I'm not sure they offer much on offense or defense.
I guess we can chalk up these signings to veteran leadership.
Cruz' range at second rates about average and at short a little below
average. His offense would have to rate pretty low although he
had some success against lefties in limited exposure. Coming into
last year Bennett had the reputation of being a good defensive catcher
but I didn't see it. His rate of allowing passed balls was one of
the highest in baseball and the National's staff wasn't exactly
overloaded with guys who have electric stuff. His percentage of
throwing out opposing base stealers was also well below average.
It could be that both of these guys are overflowing with intangibles,
but the numbers say they aren't much better than a good number of
career minor leaguers.
Of course the biggest deal this week was AJ Burnett signing with
the Blue Jays. Toronto met his demand for 5-years at $55 million,
and took the added risk of giving him an out-clause after three years
if he didn't like the situation. There was an interesting graphic
on Baseball Tonight about Burnett, comparing his signing to that of
Darren Dreifort back in 2000. Both pitchers were 28 years old,
had signed 5-year deals
for $55 million and both had come off 12-win seasons.
There were a couple of other similarities as well, but there were also
a few significant differences that weren't mentioned. The most
obvious is that Dreifort was already a Dodger; Burnett will not only be
changing teams but also leagues which may or may not help him.
Most of the hitters he'll be facing haven't seen him much so they'll
have to adjust as much as he will; that could work in his favor.
The AL East has the DH and fewer pitcher friendly ballparks than the NL
East so that will probably work against him. But he's an extreme
groundball pitcher (2.42 groundballs for every flyball last year) so
that might not be as great a consideration. Along those same
lines, the year before Dreifort signed he had allowed 31 homers, and 20
the season before that. Burnett allowed just 12 last year
and hasn't allowed more than that since 2001. There's little
debate the Jays took a big risk and if Burnett ends up like Dreifort,
their dreams of competing against the Red Sox and Yankees are pretty
much shot. They simply don't have the money to swallow a contract
like that and find an equally expensive replacement the way the Yankees
and Red Sox can and do. But if he can stay healthy, he might be
enough to push the Jays into contention if one of the others slip
up.