Once upon a time, the San Diego Padres had a manager/GM named Jack McKeon who seemed to make trades for the sake of making trades. His nickname, Trader Jack! In recent years, Billy Beane, GM of the Bay Bridge rivals Oakland A's has made a whole series of trades starting with the dismantling of the Big Three of Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito that have not exactly left the A's in better shape than when he started. Of course, that doesn't stop all the "Billy is God" sycophants who, because they claim to understand sabermetrics, hold themselves in contempt of other mere fans, from proclaiming after each and every Billy Beane trade that it is all part of some master plan to achieve world domination.
It comes as no surprise then that Trader Billy would get the old Hot Stove fired up with the first signing and first major trade of the offseason. It all started with news that the A's had made the high bid on Japanese pitcher, Hisashi Iwakuma. That left some people scratching their heads because Oakland was already loaded with good young starting pitchers. Now, I will give Billy Beane credit for thinking ahead, maybe more than any other GM. I don't happen to think that he always thinks ahead correctly, but he does think ahead! Within hours of the news that the A's had won the bidding for Iwakuma, Billy traded a couple of pitchers, Vin Mazzaro and minor leaguer Justin Marks to the KC Royals for OF David DeJesus.
David DeJesus is a bit of an enigma. He has long been regareded as having elite potential, but he has never really come close to achieving that level of performance and he has tended to be inconsistent. He has hit for average at times but has also had seasons where he was well under .300. He does draw a lot of walks for a good OBP, which Billy likes, but he has never hit 15 HR's nor has he ever stolen 15 bases in any single season. On defense, DeJesus' UZR's have also been inconsistent, but he is reputed to be a solid defender with above average range in the OF. DeJesus' salary will be $6 million next season, but he will almost certainly test his luck in the FA market next offseason, so Oakland is likely getting him for just one season.
As for the pitchers involved, Iwakuma would seem to be a solid bet to be an upgrade over Mazzaro while Marks has a limited ceiling but a decent chance to eventually be a #4 or 5 MLB starter. Mazzaro's contract is under team control for 5 more seasons while Marks has 3 more seasons before he is Rule 5 eligible and then would have 3 more options after that, so KC has plenty of time to develop him, although he is projected to be a fairly fast mover.
With the signing and trade, Billy Beane gives the A's 2 clear upgrades at SP and OF. DeJesus is probably never going to live up to his perceived potential, and will likely have slightly worse offensive numbers in Oakland than KC. On the other hand, like the Giants, the A's pitch and defend well enough that even a small upgrade on offense might be a big difference maker. From KC's perspective, they add to their pitching depth and get long term cost control for a player they would almost certainly lose after next season anyway, but you've got to think they could have gotten more for DeJesus if they had waited out the FA market until after Carl Crawford and Jayson Werth signed or even waited until next year's trade deadline to deal him. Worst case scenario, KC keeps him all season and then gets compensatory draft picks after he leaves for free agency next offseason. A deadline trade and/or compensation draft picks is likely to be figuring prominently in Billy Beane's thinking here too.
I haven't always been a fan of Billy Beane's trades, and I despise the "Billy is God" mentality in many corners of the baseball oriented internet, but I have to give him a solid thumbs up for the presumed Iwakuma signing and the David DeJesus trade. I'll give Dayton Moore and the KC Royals a thumbs down for not getting nearly enough return for DeJesus.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Ah, Trader Jack! Haven't heard his name in ages!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about Beane being overrated as a GM, but do think that he's a good GM. I'm amazed by some of the good trades he has made (which are equally countered by the bad ones, and there has been many).
Still, you have to wonder if he's over the hill. The trade for Holliday backfired so badly, I think.
I think if he got DeJesus for the draft picks, that's just another poor move. Draft picks that you get for an established player is too much of a crapshoot because they are too far back in the draft (late first round and later) to reliably judge whether they will ever pay off. That's like buying a lottery ticket and wishing it pays off. He would be better off doing as he did with Holliday and trading DeJesus mid-season for additional prospects.
I don't see the A's situation being the same as the Giants, other than on the surface that we both have good pitching and defense. The A's, yes, have a young pitching staff, but from what I can see, only Brett Anderson can be close to being in the same conversation with Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Bumgarner. And he hasn't been that good in striking out batters in the majors, so even he comes short in my eyes.
Baseball Prospectus, who loves Billy Beane (probably because he gave them a complimentary quote for their annuals) but wanted Brian Sabean fired before the 2010 season (probably because he doesn't return their calls), studied why Billy Beane's s**t doesn't work in the playoffs in one of their books, and found that teams that have pitchers who can strike out batters at a high rate and have a great closer (by their measurement, WRXL) improve their chances of going deeper into the playoffs (great fielding defense too).
Apparently Billy hasn't read their book, either that or don't think much of their conclusions, because he's doing the same thing again, his pitchers don't strike out many batters and his closer's WRXL was 26th in the majors in 2010.
And that's why I don't think much of the Royal's move. Mazzaro is OK, but don't really do much for KC, I don't think, other than maybe upgrade slightly over Brian Bannister, who they just let go. They have the closer but need more starters who can strike out guys. Mazzaro won't do that for them. To me, it's another sign that they will continue to drift sideways, pulling in high draft picks but not knowing what to do with them to build a playoff team.
Another way to view how bad relatively the A's pitching staff: their K/BB is pretty bad. You normally want starters over 2.0, ideally over 2.2, and most are under 2.0. Quality staffs have high K/BB, even when they don't strike out a lot, they need to keep that ratio high. The A's don't.
Now, they could have pitchers who pitch to contact and induce weak batted balls that get caught. But those pitchers don't reliably get batters out when the point is most critical, like in a playoff game. And most pitchers give up a hit 30% of the time when it's a batted ball, even if they are crafty pitchers, 25% is about as low as you can go. That's still high odds of a hit, in general. A high strikeout pitcher (see Jonathan Sanchez's BAA) can keep hits down to a minimum, minimizing damage in those key situations.
Good points, OGC. Another team that loves low-strikeout/low walk pitchers is the Minnesota Twins(I kind of follow them because my wife is a fan). Look at how they have done in the playoffs over the last 15 years or so, not so good.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Billy got DeJesus solely for the draft picks. I think he looked at the Giants and decided he could make a run for it too. He's hoping DeJesus and Iwakuma are enough upgrades to make a difference. He may also have a couple of other moves up his sleeve.
Yes, Trader Billy has made some good deals, but the whole Holliday caper completely backfired and I bet he'd like to have Andre Ethier back too! Just think about where the A's would be if they had CarGone and Ethier in the OF last year and next year!