MLBTR is reporting that the Giants and Jeremy Affeldt have agreed to a 3 year contract for a total of $18 M. Affeldt has been a vital part of 2 Giants World Series championships. He has been durable throughout his career except for a penchant for bizarre injuries that have nothing to do with pitching. Fortunately none of them have involved his left arm or hand and have not cost him significant DL time. Affeldt is a versatile reliever. He can get middle of the order LH batters out in high leverage situations, but he is also serviceable against RH batters as he showed against strongly RH leaning lineups in the 2012 postseason. He is capable of pitching full innings at a time, even more. He can close if he has to and probably even start.
When the Dodges gave Brandon League a 3 year $22 M contract to fire up the hot stove, it probably set Affeldt's market value. Although I hate to see teams do business that way, the Giants had to follow suit and get this deal done. Of the 3 major FA's, Pagan, Scutaro and Affeldt, Affeldt was probably the one the Giants could least afford to lose and the most difficult to replace.
Approximately 70-90% of the world's population is right-hand dominant while only about 10% is purely left hand dominant. There appears to be some selection bias for lefthanders in baseball with up to 25% of baseball players being naturally left-handed. Being able to hit lefthanded against a right-handed throwing pitcher is enough of a competitive advantage that more and more young aspiring ballplayers learn to swing the bat from the left side. Last year, 50% of the top 100 OPS hitters in MLB either hit exclusively from the left side or were switch-hitters. Many of those batters throw the ball right handed when on the field. By contrast, just 25% of the top ERA's in MLB were by LH pitchers.
The most common way for analysts to measure player value is by a calculated statistic called WAR(Wins Above Replacement). Analysts who depend on this method have long complained that many teams in baseball overpay for relief pitchers, particularly lefthanded relief pitchers. Here's why these analysts are wrong: WAR does not account for differences between high and low leverage situations. Leverage is a recognized concept in sabermetrics. Sabermetricians have long believed that teams should use their best reliever in high leverage situations rather than saving him for the 9'th inning which is usually relatively low leverage. With 50% of the top hitters in baseball swinging the bat from the left side or switch-hitting, and left-handed pitchers having a competitive advantage against those batters, you have to have left-handed pitchers available to get those hitters out in high leverage situations late in games. Because WAR does not account for leverage, it underestimates the value of those lefthanded relievers.
The thing that makes Affeldt special is that he brings much more than his lefthandedness to the table. Not only can the Giants use him in high leverage situations to get lefthanded batters out, but he is serviceable against RH batters. They can, thus leave him in against RH batters so he can face other LH batters later in the game. While Affeldt pitched approximately 1 inning per appearance last year, Jose Mijares and Javier Lopez, the other two LHP's in the bullpen only pitched approximately 0.5 innings per appearance.
Even the most hardened naysayers are muting their criticism of this contract due to Brian Sabean and the Giants track record with Affeldt and the role he and the bullpen have played in their 2 WS wins. Some are objecting more on the grounds of the length of the contract. Affledt is 33 years old until June 6. He will be 37 when this contract runs out at the end of the 2015 season. While pitchers can break down physically any time, Affledt has proven to be durable. He appears to take care of himself and stay in excellent shape. Relievers put less cumulative stress on their arms than starters and therefore tend to have long careers often pitching into their 40's. Thee length of contract is an issue but an acceptable risk to take given the market for relievers and the alternative options available.
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good clubhouse guy, mentor to younger pitchers and does many good works outside of baseball
ReplyDeleteworth the additional year and monies
and we get 3 more years of him insisting that he is the best hitter on the team
Great arguments, picking up what you're putting down. I would add that Affeldt has a special ability to either strike out batters or get the ball on the ground, a very useful skill for a reliever depending on the situation. Curve balls are hard to consistently be on, when Affeldt's is on, he is devastatingly effective.
ReplyDeleteSure he's had his gascan moments, but relievers tend to have those blow ups and they stick to their record for longer, due to the 60 IP average. (BTW - Lopez only had 35 IP or so and no appearances in the WS... That is a testament to Bochy understanding exactly what he has and how stunningly effective the Gints pen was).
My point last year during the outrage over the Loogys is this: if you want to go to war with Dan Runzler, you are a braver man than me. A solid pitcher is very valuable, and the interchangable lefties thrown up were comically bad last year - George Sherill, Hisanori Takahashi, JC Romero, etc. They all flamed out. Affeldt sure didn't. Yes, it would have been nicer to have 2 years and an option, like in winter 2008. Oh well, price of doing business, the Left Handed Reliever FA market is a wasteland. I think the Gints just got themselves a deal personally.
I want to emphasize your point that he can get strikeouts and groundballs. Another Giants blogger wrote how Mijares is similar so why waste the money on Affeldt, and he rationalized the flyball leaning Mijares as OK in AT&T vast OF. What he forgets is that the Giants will play a significant number of games outside of AT&T where a flyball pitcher can get hurt, badly. Particularly in the playoffs, where you might get one less game at home than the other team. Do we really want to be relying on Mijares to get a RHB out at Great American Ballpark?
DeleteAlso, Affeldt's ability to pitch against both sided hitters is a great advantage for the manager, not having to swap out all the time, saving the Loogy's for leveraged critical times, which as Shankbone noted, none popped up in the World Series this time.
And yes, these arguments against is similar to last season, substitute in Runzler for Mijares. I would much rather pay Affeldt the going market rate (it is not like we are paying him above market) for shut down assurances in the World Series and playoffs, than rely on two relievers who frankly hasn't done well for very long. I get jammed all the time on SSS, but relievers are the biggest SSS in baseball analysis, you need a long track record to at least give the impression of assurance, that is still SSS as long as the pitcher is a reliever.
That is where it pays off having experts in your organization who knows pitching and how to handle them, and can see when things are wrong and not wait until the stats reach the magic significance level to tell them what their eyes had already told them one hundred at-bats ago.
Well now, check fangraphs when you have a sec, Dave Cameron coming in with a balanced review...
DeleteI think Dave Cameron is getting tired of having to eat his words every time the Giants win the World Series.
DeleteAffeldt has been a steal ever since we got him. No issues with three years. If anything, this gives us some options with Mijares and Lopez (if Mijares matures into a guy who can do both R/L, that gives us some ammunition with Lopez next year). And we still have Runzler waiting, which isn't bad. Worst case, he becomes valuable trade bait.
ReplyDeleteOnly down side is that it is $6mm off the table for Scutaro and ???. Unless they want to increase their payroll a lot, it is starting to look like we won't have all three back, which is not a huge surprise.
I think with Rowand, Huff and Freddy coming off contract, we have about 20mm to play with. Some of that goes since Pence now gets 13mm and you have increases. Seems like we'd get lucky if we can afford Scutaro.
Any chance they're thinking of Brown for next year ala Crawford last year and his AFL showing? I love Pagan, but I'm wondering if Brown gets us there (other than his base running).
PiLamBear
Glad Affeldt is in the fold....The Giants still win with Pitching and Affeldt is essential to the bullpen..Well done..maybe a few extra dollars but i'm fine with it...If for some reason the Giants have too much money wrapped up in the bullpen, they can trade Lopez (only good against lefties, unlike Affledy who can be used in ANY situation)as part of a package or alone and get something in return...
DeleteOTOH maybe this symbolizes that the Giants Have the money AND are willingt o spend it on both SCUTARO and PAGAN? Hope so...
Regarding BROWN...I think he has all the tools but after watching him a bit in Richmond last year, I still think he needs at least a half a year of development to be anything more than a bench player...I woukd be patient with him this year..
I'm not up with the numbers but that $20 million, do I understand it is money off from Rowand, Huff and Freddie but not including the natural annual increase shown in the past for baseball in general which has been increasing faster than CPi?
DeleteDo we get more money from possibly re-signing Wilson to a cheap deal?
As for Pence, how much is extra in that $13 million?
The same with Scutaro. How much more will he ger versus what he got for 2012?
And Pagan as well.
Im curious about the increases, not so much the absolute annual amounts.
I think between Rowand, Huff and Franchez, the Giants have about $30 M coming off the books. When I added it up, it seemed like about $20 mg was already spoken for in various raises. I read somewhere that the Giants would probably increase payroll about $10 M to $140 M total. That gives them about $20 M to play with. In other words, short of going after a Hamilton or Grienke, I don't see payroll as being a limiting factor.
DeleteI am still a bit confused.
DeleteTo arrive at that '$20 M to play with,' did you take the 2012 money to Pence, Pagan and Scutaro, in addition to the 2012 money to ROwand, Huff and FSanchez, off the books as well?
If we don't take the 2012 money to Pence, Pagan and Scutaro off the books in arrving at the '$20 million to play with,' then we should only look at their 2013 increases over their 2012 pays in figuring how their signings would eat into that $20 M.
That's my understanding. Perhaps I am not seeing it correctly.
I guess what I am saying is we don't have 'Rowand, Huff and FSanchez' coming off the books.
DeleteInstead, I see we have Rowand, Huff, FSanchez, Pagan, Scutaro and Affeldt (since re-signed) come off the books.
We were at 130mm give or take to start. So Pence "coming off" doesn't really help b/c he was added. Same with Scutaro.
DeleteI thought Rowand was 8ish and Freddy was 6ish, so that would $24mm, but if they're willing to go up another 10mm, that would allow for Scutaro and Paga (since that adds 15mm and you're using most of the rest for raises).
PiLamBear
I guess I am starting from a different point in time.
DeleteAfter Pence and cutaro were added, we were at a certain number for 2012. I assume they were OK with that number and I assume we talk about how much more to spend starting from the end of 2012, not from the beginning of 2012.
So we take Rowand, Huff, FSachez, Pagan, Scutaro and Affeldt off the books. Use that plus other considerations, minus raises to the players still on the team to determine how much to spend on free agents, including our own, such as Affeldt, Pagan and Scutaro.
Rowand $13 M, Huff $12 M with $2 M buyout= $10 M net, Franchez $6 M. That's $29 M, right? I did not count Pagan, Scutaro or Affledt. Either they will get raises or the Giants will end up paying someone else approximately the same amount.
DeleteWhen you count it this way, it seems to me that the number we are to be concerned with, in Affeldts' case, for example, is how much more he will make in 2013, versus 2012 - that difference is then deducted from that $29 million number - and one might then list it under 'raises.'
DeleteNo issues with this contract. To be honest, I thought Affeldt was the least likely to come back of the three main free agents we had, as I figured the Giants would push hard to get a deal done with Pagan before working on something with Affeldt. As for the contract, I hear a lot of complaints about it being an overpay, which it might be. But taking into account how contract values inflate each season, what is an overpay for next season could be a slight discount in the final year.
ReplyDeleteBochy and Sabean both got robbed.
ReplyDeleteI would vote Bochy manager of the year and Sabean executive of the year.
Well, both Billy Beane and Davey Johnson have cases for EOY and MOY respectively, but yeah, Bochy and Sabes are very deserving themselves.
DeleteDrB - I just checked your conversation at BCB. I'm surprised at Chris Quick/Xanthan, usually he is much more even handed than that. He cherry picked some bizarre stats and cut it off at 2010 (Affeldt's worst year as a Gint) instead of including 2009. Then he put up a career total on splits for RHB (that include Affeldt starting in KC), if you go year by year as a reliever in the french vanilla there is a much different story going on... I'd jump on there but I can't figure out that commenting system and don't need another account to deal with now.
ReplyDeleteYeah, his answer was totally inadequate and bizarre. Someone took him to task for his response to me. I think I'll just leave it at that because the other responder really laid it out straight as well or better than I could have.
DeleteDidn't know Chris Quick=Xanthan. It's a truism, that people who advertise themselves as being sabermetric experts do not generally appreciate opposing points of view, especially if it's backed up by stats and logic that they cannot snark back at.
DeleteMaybe I'm just a bit delirious from fatigue but it looks to me like Chris went back and removed the discussion about Mijares being an alternative to Affeldt from his original post.
DeleteHa, it was his blog post I was referring to above. That is very lame to remove something from your original blog post, I have never done that to make myself look better. I was going to comment, but I just couldn't, I had been there and done that and basically was not made to feel welcome there, maybe because he's from MCC originally.
DeleteHe probably removed it because Cameron made the point I was going to make, that a groundball strikeout guy can do well anywhere, but a guy like Mijares, a flyball pitcher that Chris said does well in AT&T, still has to pitch OUTSIDE of AT&T at least half the time, and perhaps more in the playoffs. And what if the Giants need a lefty to come in and Baker pinchhits a RHB at Great American, and you have to leave Mijares in there to face him?
Weak sauce. He wiped the comments in addition to changing his post. Not a fan of that.
Deletehttp://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/miami-marlins-toronto-blue-jays-blockbuster-trade-jose-reyes-josh-johnson-mark-buehrle-yunel-escobar-emilio-bonifacio-111312
ReplyDeleteloria pulls another fire sale. if selig cares about the miami market, he will push the owners to force loria to sell
maybe the marlins will never be able to draw, but wont be able to tell unless there is competent ownership that cares about the game
on the other hand, loria just helped to make the al east extremely competitive
bacci...not bochy
Well, as I see it, the problem in Miami was spending all that money on flawed players in the first place. They were at least able to shed the payroll and pick up some nice pieces for their future in the process. You will probably be able to hear the crickets chirping in the stands next year, though.
DeleteAlso, not so sure this makes the AL East competitive. Not sure why you would take on half the players from a failed team and expect a different result somewhere else. That was the Dodger's mistake.
DeleteWell, AA gets some pitching now. I'm not sure if Johnson can hold up, but he is legit if he stays healthy. Buehrle is a solid innings eater. Reyes is overrated but should be good for next year. Bonifacio is a streaky guy, but he gives some utility also. Toronto didn't really give up a ton, and that is the advantage of stockpiling prospects. The Jays need to either compete with Joey Bats and their Canuck 3B, so this is a nice gamble for them. I still think AA is overrated, but he does have a flair for the dramatic, and this trade might beat the FA market. If they get Anibal Sanchez that would be a pretty nice staff to top it all off.
DeleteSchulman reporting that Affeldt has pased his physical but the Giants are not announcing the deal, and that the Giants think they can sign Scutaro to a two year deal.
ReplyDeleteSeems like Giants want to take care of deals first then do their usual presser, maybe, once some puzzle pieces are placed. Let's see how it goes for Pagan, if do presser first, probably not good for him returning.
Re Pagan, that is a wise reading of the Sabean tea leaves my friend.
DeleteMuch as I like Pagan, and I like him a lot, I think the priorities have to be Affeldt, Scutaro, Pagan, in that order. There is basically nobody on the market who could replace Affeldt. Alternatives for Scutaro would be big dropoffs even if he regresses to a normal year for him, which he probably will. I figure with Pagan, I could live with Blanco in CF and leading off which would be the worst case scenario.
DeleteI agree. There are FA options, scrap heap options and farm options for Pagan's spot. And trade options. Scutaro is a much different proposition. I do not blame Angel for seeking the best deal, this is the spot in his career he needs to do that. Good Giant, great trade. I am 80% sure Pagan is gone, unless all he gets offered is that 3/30MM and the Gints decide to come up and meet it.
DeleteI agree too, exactly in that order. And it is looking good for keeping at least the two top priorities, we'll see on Pagan, I see his position more like Uribe after 2010, it would be nice to keep him, I would like to keep him, but we will survive his loss relatively easily.
DeleteOoo, I was wrong hopefully, Giants just announced Affeldt's signing. I can't imagine that the Scutaro negotiations went south overnight after the Chron reported that the Giants like their chances of signing him to a contract.
Delete