The Hardball Times http://www.hardballtimes.com/main Baseball. Insight. Daily. en evan.brunell@gmail.com Copyright 2009 2009-11-20T18:58:00+00:00 Kevin Millwood or Luis Castillo: Who is more valuable? http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/kevin-millwood-or-luis-castillo-who-is-more-valuable/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/kevin-millwood-or-luis-castillo-who-is-more-valuable/ Mets Castillo Bunts Against Chicago CubsKind of a weird topic, right? But I have my reasoning.

News broke Friday of a potential three-way deal that would send Milton Bradley back to Texas from the Cubs. Chicago would receive second baseman Luis Castillo from the Mets as their reward for shedding the malcontent, with Kevin Millwood heading to the Big Apple to complete the trade.

This has been debunked by several sources, such as MLB Trade Rumors, T.R Sullivan and Jon Heyman. However, it's sparked a debate between Heyman and other people on Twitter whether or not Castillo or Millwood is valuable.

So, is Castillo valuable? Is Heyman on the mark that Millwood is more valuable than Castillo?

The easiest way to find out is to look at Fangraph's valuation of both players in a dollar figure. Castillo was worth $7.2 million this past year, drawing a salary of $6 million. Last year, he was valued at a paltry $2.6 million, going to show how awful Castillo and his contract looked just a year ago.

Millwood, on the other hand, posted a very good season with a 3.67 ERA. His FIP was 4.80, so there's cause for concern as to whether Millwood is smoke or mirrors. I'm not putting all my eggs into the FIP basket, to use an analogy, but I'm certainly not relying on his ERA either. Millwood was valued at $10.9 million, so right off the bat there is an easy answer to the question as to who is more valuable.

When you think about it, too, isn't it obvious that Millwood is more valuable?

Let's toss out some comparisons.

Castillo has 2 years and $12 million remaining on his contract. He plays second base, a position where offense is not particularly relied on, and will enter his age 34 season. At this point in his career, all Castillo has going for him is his plate discipline and an ability to hit for an average hovering in the .280-.300 range. He's not adept defensively according to UZR. If I had to select Castillo or Chris Getz to be my second baseman next year, I'd select Getz. (All else NOT equal.)

My point here is that Castillo and his production -- with his contract heavily factored in -- is rather replaceable. The only thing Luis has going for him at the moment is that his bad contract can be swapped for another bad contract. (Give me Milton Bradley any day of the week over Castillo, Carl Everett attitude be damned.)

Millwood will be 35 and can hit 200 innings pitched a season. He's a solid, if erratic pitcher who will keep a team in the game and will make $12 million in the final year of his contract. He is best used as a No. 3-4, although the Rangers currently cast him as their ace. Millwood is not replaceable. While you might be able to get away with calling up a AAAA player and having him perform to or over Castillo's abilities, you can't say the same of an AAAA pitcher with respect to Millwood.

That's where this trade breaks down. A Bradley for Millwood swap makes more sense talent-wise, but Castillo being considered on the level of these two players is fallacy at its finest. If true that Mets GM Omar Minaya overvalues him -- even when trying to trade him -- then you can bet on Castillo being the Mets' second baseman in 2010.

Read more great baseball stuff at The Hardball Times.]]> ]]> Evan Brunell 2009-11-20T18:58:00+00:00 Great Moments in Championship Celebrations http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/shysterball/article/great-moments-in-championship-celebrations/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/shysterball/article/great-moments-in-championship-celebrations/ but this story sent to me by MooseinOhio is so cool that I gotta post it somewhere.*

After the Celtics won the 1986 championship, [Bill] Walton sat alone in Bird’s kitchen drinking Wild Turkey until after the sun came up.

I told Bird I didn’t believe the Walton story. Simply too good to be true.

“Yeah, it happened,’’ he said. “After we won, me and Dinah went out to K.C. Jones’s restaurant. He had a rib place. I had two beers. Remember how we stopped drinking that year?’’ - the ’86 Celtics swore off alcohol for their playoff run - “Well, I had two beers and they didn’t even taste good. I was tired, anyway, so I went home an hour later.

“Bill came over. It was late. Doorbell rang and Dinah answered and she was like, ‘Hey, Bill. Larry’s in bed.’ I heard him, so I go out and I said, ‘Hey, man I ain’t doing this tonight. I can’t.’ He goes, ‘Don’t worry about it. I don’t even need you. I’m just going to sit down here at the table.’ He had a bottle of whiskey. And he said, ‘I’ll be here when you wake up.’ And he was.

Drinking Wild Turkey in a kitchen until dawn > spraying champagne all over sweaty guys in a locker room. Though, yeah, I suppose those things aren't mutually exclusive activities after cutting down the nets.

*As an FYI, after the switchover to NBC, I'm probably going to revive my old dead personal blog for stuff that I can't really post over there, non-baseball stuff, and what have you. As of now there's only some old remembrances and a road trip diary. It might serve as a nice hangout going forward, though.

Read more great baseball stuff at The Hardball Times.]]> ]]> Craig Calcaterra 2009-11-20T17:00:50+00:00 My Morning in Exile http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/shysterball/article/my-morning-in-exile112009/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/shysterball/article/my-morning-in-exile112009/ fabulous Columbus cuisine and sample the hot Columbus nightlife. Well, what else are we gonna do? We're all through with "The Wire" DVDs.

  • On the heels of his Cy Young ballot yesterday, you won't be surprised to learn that Keith Law has Carl Pavano at number one on his annual list of Top 50 free agents.


  • Tim Lincecum's agent, employer and publicist are very, very sorry for his actions.


  • Gammons and Edes break down the Red Sox' offseason. They'll return to pretending to be national as opposed to local columnists later today.


  • Aaron Heilman will definitely be coming out of the pen in Arizona.


  • Stephen Strasburg hurts his knee; Matt Wieters called to lay hands.


  • Paul Lo Duca: he may be old, he may have been a steroid creation, he may have messed around behind his wife's back with a teenage girl and he may have been caught up in gambling allegations, but . . . wait, I lost my train of thought here. Anyone wanna go get a sandwich?


    • As for "The Wire," the best thing I got out of it is the certainty that my recent decision to stop watching any non-ballgame-related television was a good one. Unless they bring back "Barney Miller" or something, there's no way any show can top it, so why waste my time?

    Read more great baseball stuff at The Hardball Times.]]> ]]>     Craig Calcaterra 2009-11-20T15:10:11+00:00     Medium and short-time pitch memory http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/medium-and-short-time-memory/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/medium-and-short-time-memory/

    Click the title to read more.

    Read more great baseball stuff at The Hardball Times.]]> ]]>     Max Marchi 2009-11-20T10:30:41+00:00     Cooperstown Confidential: Olbermann is off base http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/cooperstown-confidential-olbermann-and-klimkowski/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/cooperstown-confidential-olbermann-and-klimkowski/
    Click the title to read more.

    Read more great baseball stuff at The Hardball Times.]]> ]]>     Bruce Markusen 2009-11-20T10:00:27+00:00     Waiver Wire Offseason: AL http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/waiver-wire-offseason-al-1120/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/waiver-wire-offseason-al-1120/
    Click the title to read more.

    Read more great baseball stuff at The Hardball Times.]]> ]]>     Rob McQuown 2009-11-20T08:00:15+00:00     Waiver Wire Offseason: NL http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/waiver-wire-offseason-nl-1120/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/waiver-wire-offseason-nl-1120/
    Click the title to read more.

    Read more great baseball stuff at The Hardball Times.]]> ]]>     Michael Street 2009-11-20T06:00:47+00:00     Sportswriters don’t vote for Cy Young based on popular opinion; baseball universe explodes http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/sportswriters-dont-vote-for-cy-young-based-on-popular-opinion-baseball-univ/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/sportswriters-dont-vote-for-cy-young-based-on-popular-opinion-baseball-univ/ Keith Law didn't vote for Chris Carpenter. Will Carroll didn't either. Of course, according to the baseball fans on Twitter, both are saber-morons who are ruining the game. Hysteria indeed. A few interesting tweets/comments:

    Jon Heyman (@SI_JonHeyman): "i dont mean to pick on the voters. but how do 2 of them leave chris carpenter off the ballot entirely? #dumbsportswriters"

    Joe and Evan (popular NY talk show hosts, @JoeandEvan): "Plain and simple Linceum should NOT have won Cy Young...disgrace that ESPN's Keith Law left Carpenter off ballot."

    Matthew Pouliot (NBC Sports): "Now get a load of this: the Cardinals were 68-60 when Wainwright didn't pitch. The Braves were 68-62 when Vazquez didn't pitch. So, the Cards were 23-11 in Wainwright's starts, while the Braves were 18-14 when Vazquez pitched. That's the real world for you."

    Man, Heyman really gave it to them with that "dumb" comment. Here are the stats, just so we all know what's up:

    NL SP FIP:

    1. Lincecum
    2. Vazquez
    3. Carpenter

    NL SP xFIP:

    1. Vazquez
    2. Lincecum
    3. Haren...
    7. Caprenter

    NL SP WAR:

    1. Lincecum
    2. Vazquez
    3. Haren...
    6. Carpenter

    It isn't crazy at all to not include Carpenter from the list. In fact, if Chris Carpenter pitched for a crappy NL West team and didn't win a whole bunch of games while missing the playoffs, nobody would be making such a big deal about this.

    Rob Neyer sums up this situation nicely:

    There's something to be said for Conventional Wisdom. In this case, the Conventional Wisdom was unanimous: the three best pitchers in the league were Lincecum, Carpenter, and Wainwright. But in a field as traditionally conservative as award voting, isn't it healthy to allow room for just a bit of unconventional wisdom, too?

    Carroll and Law didn't do anything crazy. They looked at the same numbers available to everyone else, and came up with slightly different answers. They should not be reviled for this. They should instead be applauded.

    But what we may see from this is a whole bunch of backlash not just for these two intelligent/honest writers, but for the saber community as as an entity. It's the whole, "We left you nerds alone when you were just blogging 'n such, but now that you're voting with us, you better back off." I hope I'm wrong. I hope that this commentary is at least isolated to the mid-afternoon sports radio shows and MLB.com message boards. However, I get the eery suspicion that we haven't heard the last of it.

    Read more great baseball stuff at The Hardball Times.]]> ]]>     Pat Andriola 2009-11-19T21:35:15+00:00     Your Thursday afternoon tizzy http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/shysterball/article/your-thursday-afternoon-tizzy/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/shysterball/article/your-thursday-afternoon-tizzy/ Keith voted Javier Vazquez second (Lincecum first and Wainwright third) and Will voted Wainwright first, Lincecum second and Danny Haren third. They were the only ones who included Vazquez or Haren on their ballots.

    A comment about this from reader Ron in the thread below my earlier post:

    “Two voters, Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus and Keith Law of ESPN.com, did not include Carpenter on their ballots.” Nice. Leave the best pitcher in the NL off of your ballots to insure the saber-metric favorite wins. The BBWAA guys might not be the best at voting, but the saber friendly guys don’t have the right to accuse them of manipulating the vote anymore.

    Ron, I love you. You've been reading this blog longer than just about anyone and I always appreciate your input. But you're factually wrong here inasmuch as even if Will changed his vote for Haren to Carpenter and and Law did the same with his Vazquez vote, Lincecum still wins. And really, if Will was really trying to throw it to Lincecum, wouldn't he have voted him first?

    But I don't mean to single out Ron. I posted his comment simply because it stands at the somewhat extreme end of the discontent I've read at a few message boards. There really are people out there scratching their heads at this, and I imagine there will be at least a little grousing about their votes over the next couple of slow news days.

    For my part, I wouldn't have voted the same way Keith and Will did -- neither Vazquez nor Haren would have made my ballot -- but they explain their rationale and I understand why they voted the way they voted even if I disagree with it. At the very least I understand docking Carpenter based on innings pitched, and that seems to be the point of controversy here. I'm a bit more of a romantic than Keith and Will are, I think, so I'd probably have included him on my ballot for reasons associated with his comeback from injury and all of that, but it's certainly legitimate to not include him.

    I predict that some people will use Keith's and Will's votes in some argument that statheads shouldn't be given the franchise over the next couple of days. Such an argument, if it comes, should be rejected out of hand. At most this is some down-ballot curiosity, the sort of which we see on the votes for every award.

    Read more great baseball stuff at The Hardball Times.]]> ]]>     Craig Calcaterra 2009-11-19T20:24:38+00:00     Lincecum takes the Cy Young http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/shysterball/article/lincecum-takes-the-cy-young/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/shysterball/article/lincecum-takes-the-cy-young/
    Given that he has a court date on a controlled substance thing coming up soon, be prepared for the most boring celebration party of all time.

    Read more great baseball stuff at The Hardball Times.]]> ]]>     Craig Calcaterra 2009-11-19T17:54:42+00:00