When a Surplus is Actually a Dilemma: The Atlanta Rotation

We've been hearing all offseason long about how the Braves are looking to deal from their surplus of starting pitching to fill some of their needs (outfield, middle infield, etc.) They have already unloaded Derek Lowe, which was a great move. They have since been linked to a number of potential deals involving Jair Jurrjens. Looking at their roster, I do not envy their position. They do not have a surplus. What they have is a guessing game, which will probably result in one of two things: They can play it safe and hang on to all of their pitching depth to see who pans out, meanwhile costing some value since valuable players will spend extra time in the minor leagues. Contrarily, they could look to move Jair Jurrjens or another starter in a trade and rely heavily on unknown goods to produce on a potentially winning ball club. Here's the issue: They have just one starter that threw more than 152 innings last year, and he happens to be Tim Hudson, who will turn 37 years old in July. Beyond that, they have a cast of young pitchers which offer huge upside but have absolutely no big league track record. To reiterate: this is NOT a surplus...this is a scary proposal for any pitching coach.

• Tim Hudson - 215 innings pitched...well above average in 2011
• Tommy Hanson - 130 innings pitched in 2011....almost exactly league average according to park neutral statistics on statcorner.com. Hanson has the potential to be much better in 2012 if healthy.
• Jair Jurrjens - 152 innings pitched....trade bait and a regression candidate. Even though he posted a sexy 2.96 ERA, statcorner has him listed as slightly below average based on his peripherals.
• Brandon Beachy - 142 innings pitched....and statistically the most successful Braves pitcher. He's pitched only 156 innings in his major league career.
• Mike Minor - 82 innings pitched in 2011, and only 120 in his big league career.... He's had below average results thus far, but Atlanta expects big things in the future.
• Randall Delgado - 35 innings pitched in 2011 and his entire big league career. Only decent results thus far, and a severe regression candidate based on normalized statistics. Honestly, there's no telling what Delgado can be based on the evidence thus far.
• Julio Teheran - 19 innings pitched in 2011 and his entire big league career. He is no doubt an incredibly talented super-prospect, but no one knows how long it will take him to find success in the big leagues. He looks to be ready from day one, but it's tough to count on a rookie.

Seven names, and only one solid track record. It will be fascinating to watch how the Braves handle this situation, and do not be shocked to see the Braves play if safe this offseason in order to gather more evidence. As the saying goes, the cream usually rises to the top. The Braves look to have a great rotation as long as they don't unload the wrong guys.

The All "He's Making What?!?!" Team

With all of the long-term, big money deals being thrown around, the question that is always asked is: "How will this deal look in its final years?"  This is ultimately the reason that the St. Louis Cardinals took a pass on re-signing Albert Pujols.  They probably had no issues at all paying him $25 million for the next several years, when he would likely still be performing in his prime.  But with a payroll hovering around $100 million, the Cardinals brass just couldn't stomach the thought of paying a quarter of their payroll to a guy ages 39-42, when there is no way that he could produce $25 million worth of value on the field.

That fear is the spirit of what The All "He's Making What?!?!" Team is all about.  This is a team comprised of the players at each position who will be the most grossly overpaid in 2012 with relation to their expected performance.  Feel free to submit your own nominees if you see someone not on this list.  (All salary information found on Cot's Baseball Contracts)

Catcher-- Joe Mauer ($23 Million)  I hate to put Joe on this list, because I really like him as a player, but $23 million for an oft-injured catcher who will likely play a lot of first base and designated hitter, and has only cracked 20 home runs once?

First Base--Ryan Howard ($20 million)  Howard's numbers have dropped in nearly every major statistical category in recent years.  He is being paid to put up big home run numbers, but hasn't topped 33 in the last two years.

Second Base--Brian Roberts ($10 Million) Roberts has only hit over .300 once in his career (2005), and the last two years he has averaged playing 49 games per season.  He does steal a few bases, but has he has gotten older, his speed has decreased along with his stolen base totals.  Oh, and his slash line last year looked like this: .221/.273/.331

Third Base--Alex Rodriguez ($29 Million) I thought about Chipper Jones ($13 million) here because of his injury-prone-ness, but look at how much A-Rod is making!  There is no way that he will be worth $29 million in 2012.  Unless he figures out a way to "enhance his performance" again...

Shortstop--Derek Jeter ($16 million) Yep, the Yankees round out the left side of the infield here.  I know what you are thinking.  "But he's Derek Jeter!  And he's a bargain compared to Alex Rodriguez!"  I suppose there is some inherent value to his icon status for the Yankees.  But strip away all of that, and you know what I call a poor defensive shortstop who will hit around .300 and steal a few bases?  Ryan Theriot.

Outfield #1--Vernon Wells ($21 million) This was long thought to be the worst, most un-tradable contract in baseball history.  But then Blue Jays GM Alex Anthropolous traded it.  And got Mike Napoli and Juan Rivera in retern.  What?!?!

Outfield #2-- Alfonso Soriano ($18 million)  Sure he'll still pop 20-25 home runs, but so will most left fielders. Soriano's average has hovered right around .250 the last several years, and he has managed to make playing left field look like rocket science.

Outfield #3--Jason Bay ($16 million) A lot of directions we could go here with this last outfield spot, like Carlos Lee ($18.5 million), Jason Werth ($13 million), Torii Hunter ($18 million).  But Jason Bay has been genuinely worthless to the Mets.  Bay, a poor defensive outfielder, was signed to add some mash to the Mets lineup, but since arriving in New York, he has averaged 9 home runs a year and a .388 slugging percentage.

Designated Hitter-- Adam Dunn ($14 million) There were high expectations for Dunn, a perennial 40 home run guy, when he came to the White Sox.  Unfortunately, last year he hit 11 home runs with a .159 batting average.  Yikes.

Lots of good choices for the starting rotation, but we have selected five pitchers who have mixed their unbearably high salaries with poor performance and questionable health (mental health, in the Big Z's case).   Congratulations, guys!

Starting Pitcher #1--AJ Burnett ($16.5 million)

Starting Pitcher #2--Barry Zito ($19 million)

Starting Pitcher #3--Carlos Zambrano ($18 million)

Starting Pitcher #4--Jake Peavy ($17 million)

Starting Pitcher #5--Derek Lowe ($15 million)

For what it is worth, we have mercifully left off the list guys who will likely be earning big dollars to not pitch because of injury (Johan Santana-$24 million, John Lackey-$15.25 million).

Relief Pitcher--Rafael Soriano ($11 million) Soriano has been a decent closer in his career, and his $11 million seems to fit the (crazy) market for closers.  Except he is not the Yankees closer.  He is being paid $11 million to set up for Mariano Rivera.  Pretty expensive bullpen arm, if you ask me.

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So, if you were counting, there are three teams with multiple players on this list: The Yankees (4), The White Sox (2), and The Cubs (2)

The Yankees' Inexplicable Dearth of Starting Pitching

Happy two days after Christmas!  I trust that by now, most everyone has returned to work with just a bit of that Yuletide glow still lingering...  

Anyhow, on to baseball!  I was scrolling through some recent baseball stories this morning, and read that the Yankees are probably not going to offer on free agent starting pitcher Hiroki Kuroda. I don't get it.  It is well-documented that the Yankees both (1) spend way more money than anyone else and (2) still have a seemingly endless supply of money rolling in.  Because of these factors, combined with their painfully shallow rotation (Sabathia plus...), I thought for certain that they would be acquiring at least one (if not all!) of the high level free agent pitchers available, by offering them a ludicrous amount of money.  But then Mark Buerhle signed with the Marlins and C.J. Wilson signed with the Angels.  At this point, I thought for certain that they were all in on Yu Darvish (see " 'If I Were General Manager...' Series: AL East).  But then it was announced that the Rangers had the winning bid, and the Blue Jays were likely a close second.  Now, admittedly, the Yankees may have simply been outbid.  But how often are the Yankees bested financially on something that they really want?  Then today, I read that they are probably not in on Kuroda, perhaps the top free agent name left.  So what's the plan?

If the season started today, the Yankee rotation would look like this:

1. C.C. Sabathia

2.  Ivan Nova

3. Phil Hughes

4. A.J. Burnett

5. Freddy Garcia

Sabathia is great, and Nova had a good year last year, and looks as if he could be a decent #2/#3 in the making. But what about the last three spots?  

• Phil Hughes had a solid 2010 campaign, but last year he mixed the undesirable qualities of being (1) unhealthy and (2) horrible at pitching.  Hughes is still young, with upside, so I wouldn't toss him aside.  But I also wouldn't count on him the way that the Yankees seemingly are.  
• A.J. Burnett is both expensive ($16.5 million for the next two seasons) and horrible, with an ERA over 5 for the last two seasons.  For any other team, he would be to expensive to write off, but the Yankees have never been shy about their ability to eat dead money salary.
• 35 year old Freddy Garcia enjoyed something of a career renaissance last year, but that comes after five years of sub-mediocre pitching, and I'm willing to bet he comes back to the mean in 2012.  We no longer live in an era of baseball in which a 37 year old Barry Bonds suddenly hits 73 home runs.

All of that to say, I can't believe that the Yankees and their Thurston Howell III money haven't done anything to upgrade their rotation.  Maybe they are bluffing on Kuroda.  Maybe they are going all-in on Roy Oswalt, who is still hanging around.  Maybe nobody wants to pitch in their stupid launching pad of a stadium.  Or maybe they have dumped all of their starting pitching money into genetic research on cloning Rodger Clemens.  All we can do is wait and see.

Transaction Reaction: Carlos Beltran

The Cardinals signed OF Carlos Beltran for 2 years, $26 million dollars.

• There's a new "mang" in town. I thought it would take a 3-year commitment to land Beltran, so kudos to the Cardinals' front office for upping the annual value and offering the no trade clause to make this work.
• The Cardinals are going to be really good in 2012, even without Pujols. Many of Beltran's rate stats were even higher than Pujols' in 2011, so if the Cards can keep Beltran on the field consistently they will be very successful. Jonah Keri of Grantland stated after the Latos trade that the Cardinals were still the favorite in the division, even if they don't make any other moves. Keri be darned, Mo went out and added the second best bat available. The only negative is that the Cardinals will be relying on several players who have missed significant time to injury over the past few years. However, their bench also looks to be strong enough to fill in, much like they did in 2011.
• This move also gives the Cardinals more flexibility, and the opportunity to improve the defense. Berkman will be shifting to first to fill the void left by Pujols, so Beltran and Craig will be getting most of the time in right field. I expect Beltran to get about 50 games in CF, but his exposure will definitely be limited to smaller parks, favorable pitching matchups.
• Lastly, don't listen to the narrative about Beltran being a retread. Beltran had one major surgery a few years ago, and has been a consistently elite player since he came back. He logged more innings than anyone in the Cardinals' outfield last year. His age and health is a factor, but his talent should be the story, as evidenced by his OPS and OPS+ that were near the best in the league in 2011.

Hottest Stove Mailbag!!!

The other day, my family was watching one of the various manifestations of "The Santa Clause" movies featuring Tim Allen. (How many of those movies do we need?  Seriously...)  Anyhow, one of the scenes featured a bunch of letters that Santa had received from children.  And I thought, "I wish that people sent us letters at The Hottest Stove!"  So, we are inviting all of our readers to email us any baseball questions they might want our thoughts on, and in the near future, we will feature your questions with our wise responses in a mailbag post.

Just email your questions to hotteststovemailbag@gmail.com.  Be sure to include a first name and last initial.  We look forward to hearing from you!

Rangers Win Yu Darvish Posting

Yesterday it was announced that the Texas rangers were the winners of the Yu Darvish posting, with a whopping bid of $51.7 million.  Keep in mind that this figure is not a contract amount for Darvish.  

In the Japanese baseball free agency rules, a player has to play nine years in Japan before becoming eligible to sign as a free agent with an MLB team.  However, the player's Japanese team has the option to "post" the player.  What happens is that any team with interest in acquiring that Japanese player has to submit a blind bid (not knowing what other teams have bid) on how much they are willing to pay the player's team for the exclusive rights to negotiate with that player.  After the predetermined bidding period, the winning team with the highest bid is announced.  In the case of Yu Darvish, the highest bidding team was the Texas Rangers with a whopping bid of $51.7 million.  This doesn't mean, though, that Darvish automatically becomes a Ranger.  Rather, because of their winning bid, the Rangers now have a period of thirty days to negotiate a contract with Darvish.  Should they reach an agreement with Darvish, the Nippon Ham Fighters (Darvish's previous team) receives the $51.7 million from the Rangers, Darvish gets whatever money he agrees to in his contract with the Rangers, and the Rangers get Darvish.

Assuming Darvish does get something worked out with the Rangers, how good will he be?  I read an interesting article on fangraphs.com comparing Darvish to the Nationals' Jordan Zimmermann.  That would certainly make Darvish a great get for the Rangers.  The reality is, though, that while people can take educated guesses at how Japanese players will perform in MLB, no one really knows for sure.  There have been some great (Ichiro, Hiroki Kuroda, Hideki Matsui), some mediocre (Daisuke Matzsusaka, Akinori Iwamura), and some horrible (Kei Igawa).  

What I think is interesting, though, is that when all things are considered, it looks like the Rangers are going to be paying more for Darvish than they would have for retaining the services of C.J. Wilson.  Granted, Darvish is considerably younger than Wilson, but there are a lot of risks here with the unknown.  But after Wilson's postseason struggles, the Rangers decided that they preferred what they didn't know about Darvish to what they did know about Wilson.  

"If I Were General Manager..." Series: AL East

Blue Jays

• This one seems too easy. With money to burn and a big first baseman available, I add Prince Fielder to the lineup. How many opposing pitchers will want to wade through a middle of the order that goes righty then lefty with Bautista and then Fielder?
• I make a deal with Colby Rasmus and the skipper. We will hit Colby high in the order (2-hole most days) and play him consistently. If he doesn't see an average of at least 5 ptiches per at-bat, he's gone at the trade deadline. His productive stretches have come when he's drawing walks in front of Pujols, so the same should ring true when hitting in front of my Bautista/Fielder gauntlet.
• I package a good prospect and a few low-tier pieces for starting pitching. In addition to the prospects, I offer the Astros some salary relief and get Wandy Rodriguez AND Brett Myers to fill out the back of my rotation. This leaves me with Romero, Morrow, Rodriguez, Myers and either Drabek or Alvarez.
• I make every effort to send Dustin McGowan and Brett Cecil packing in a trade for a closer. Francisco Rodriguez would be a fit if the Brewers will eat a portion of the salary.

Orioles

• I'm going into rebuilding mode for now, but this looks to be a relatively short-term project. In separate deals, I move JJ Hardy and Adam Jones. My target is decent young pitching, but not necessarily top-tier. My plan is to add a few young #2 or#3 types to toss in with Brian Matusz, Jake Arietta and Zach Britton. Hopefully these guys can mature together along with Matt Wieters. Obviously, young pitching isn't easy to come by, but teams are always in need of shortstops and center fielders.
• Not much else on the radar right now, but the plan in about three years will be to fill in some bats around Wieters and the young arms. We can make a quick run with a few well-timed free agent signings over the next few years, but for now we must show some restraint.

Rays

• I 'm going to trade Wade Davis like he's hot. As Dave Cameron of Fangraphs mentioned recently, "Wade Davis isn't good". However, a number of people seem to THINK that Wade Davis is pretty good, so I'll get as much value as I can. Besides, the rotation left over looks pretty stinking good with Price, Moore, Hellickson, Shields and Jeff Niemann. Make me any offer, but I'm going to ask for a decent shortstop.
• It's a moot point now, but I would have signed Josh Willingham to play right field. You can definitely do worse than having Jennings, Upton and Willingham across the outfield every day. Since Willingham is injury prone, this would also be a good chance to get Brandon Guyer some limited exposure.

Red Sox

• Bid like crazy for Yu Darvish. The posting system is a suspiciously convenient loop-hole for big market teams to manipulate their way around the luxury tax. By posting an obscene number to gain exclusive negotiating rights, I lessen the amount of money that actually goes on the books. Darvish (or whoever) is forced to sign with us or wait until next year. For this reason, a billionaire gets his wings each time a Japanese player is posted.
• I focus entirely on pitching because I only have 2-3 pitchers I can count on. I spend the rest of my money to add Roy Oswalt. The offense is already loaded anyway, so why not stop the other team from scoring?
• To tie up some loose ends, Josh Reddick he will be playing consistently in the outfield, and Daniel Bard will come into camp prepared to be the closer.

Yankees

• This is what makes the AL East interesting. Everything I said about Boston's need for pitching also applies here. Again, Darvish would have made a ton of sense due to the posting process, but I doubt many teams were expecting the bidding to go as high as what the Rangers put up. I look to add two pitchers (both with a name other than Freddy Garcia). Scary thought: If the Yankees go cheap at the back end of their rotation this year, they may end up in third place in this division.
• Honestly, I love the right side of the Yankees' infield, but I'm not excited about much else. (At least not compared to what the division rivals are working with.) I would make a serious run at Yoennis Cespedes to give them another talented outfielder to line up with Granderson and Gardner.