The Hardball Times -- Adam Guttridge

The Hardball Times -- Adam Guttridge http://www.hardballtimes.com/main Baseball. Insight. Daily. en studes@hardballtimes.com Copyright 2013 2013-05-17T08:57:15+00:00 The World Wood Bat Association World Championship http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-world-wood-bat-association-world-championship/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-world-wood-bat-association-world-championship/#When:08:24:15
Well, the list of those who don’t is probably shorter. Eighty-five teams from all corners of the country, and even Puerto Rico (which had, I believe, three teams) and Canada were represented. Scouts attended by the golf-cart-full. One NL Central club had 17 in attendance. I talked to scouts from seven to eight teams, and nobody had less than a dozen scouts representing the club at the event. Oh, and the college recruiters. Don’t forget them; they’re everywhere too.

The players are the absolute cream of the crop from the amateur ranks (high school seniors and younger). They are essentially high school AAU teams. The teams are at times set up by associate scouts of MLB clubs who focus on a specific geographic region, or simply a prominent high school coach (or coaches) with deep roots in the region, or some sponsor throws together a roster (Perfect Game had a few teams, Mizuno, Rawlings, etc), or at times even a former major leaguer (John Cangelosi had a team, Chet Lemon has had one for years, others). Typically (though not always), they are mostly from one general region. I say ‘mostly’ because usually a team from New Jersey will have 12 players from NJ, two to three from NY/Conn/PA and sometimes one or two who are way out of place, like Texas or Georgia. Don’t ask me how that happens. Hell, even Wagner Mateo, the top Dominican prospect embroiled in controversy of the Cardinals reneging on his $3.1 million signing, was there playing for the ‘Texas Scout Team Yankees.’

I drove across the state early Sunday morning to catch the last two days of the tournament (which is spread out over eight fields and a stadium that is the Florida State League/Spring Training home of the Cardinals and Marlins).

Before I go into reports on the prospects I saw, I need to throw up a disclaimer. I was one pair of eyes trying to watch 85 teams, so this is by no means a comprehensive list. If I say one hitter had ‘the quickest hands I saw,’ that does not mean he necessarily had the quickest hands at the tournament. But, it probably means he’s close; for an analogy, if you went to the beach all day and strolled around, the prettiest girl you saw may not have been the prettiest girl at the beach. But she might have been, and she’s probably at least pretty close to it. That said, I had two things that helped: A) Some teams are more stacked than others. I’m going to see a hell of a lot more prospects watching the Orlando Scorpions for an hour than I will in the same time with the Colorado Slammers. B) The scouts. Generally, they are assigned a handful of teams to scout for the weekend. So kindly ask a guy who the most stacked team in his pool is, and if you do so politely, he’ll tell you. And if you’re too shy to ask, they’ll tell you with their feet.

Here we go, in no particular order:
(Name, Position, Graduation Year, Home City, Tournament Team)

DeAndre Smelter, RHP, 2010, Macon Ga., Canes
Smelter is an amazing physical presence; his listing of 6-foot-2 and 205 pounds does not do him justice—he looks more like a University of Georgia linebacker than a Georgia high school pitching prospect. So no big surprise that he’s also a bigtime football recruit, which may make him a difficult sign.

Smelter had the best fastball velocity I saw. Nothing came in lower than 91, and he was consistently sitting 93-94, touching 95 twice. I was told he hit 97 in an earlier outing. The fastball isn’t so movement-heavy, though, and while he wasn’t erratic, he was so-so hitting spots. All he has right now to complement it is a low 80s slider. It’s tight, but low movement (in other words, not the loopy version you see often at this level, but there isn’t enough horizontal or vertical break to it). He got the slider over consistently, however.

I’m not so thrilled with Smelter mechanically. He doesn’t strike me as a big injury-risk, because he’s not so jerky or max-effort. He flies open a bit, which he compensates for with adept glove-hand work, but sometimes his hips open early and the arm gets behind. His arm action is a bit long as well, which can contribute to the problems. The concerns here are that the momentum is going to the wrong places at times in his delivery, which can make command a big issue. Also, his arm slot and action had one observer questioning if he’ll ever be able to develop above-average offspeed offerings.

With a body built more for sprints than marathons and not much after a fastball, Smelter may be a guy who winds up in the pen. Right now, his main weapon is his fastball velocity, but A) That’s a damn important weapon, and B) That velocity is near the top of the charts for his class. In an average year, he probably falls between late first and early second rounds. His spring performance and his signability have the potential to push that in either direction.

Luke Crumley, RHP, 2011, Cleveland, Ga., Royals Baseball Club

Crumley has the ideal projectable pitchers body; 6-foot-4, 180. His fastball right now sits 88-90 mph, with the potential for a lot more as he fills out. He also showed a pretty nasty curveball that definitely looks like a future plus pitch. Just a high school junior, Crumley is already committed to Georgia (according to Mom).

Mechanically, there is a bit more effort in the delivery than you’d like to see, and his arm jerks a bit on the finish.

His draft day is 19 months away, and anything can happen between now and then (and let that be known for any 2011 player discussed here). But if he’s already hitting 90 with room to grow and a good looking second pitch, he’s a guy you want to follow.

Austin Sovay, RHP, 2012, Ft. Lauderdal, Fla., Marucci Elite

That’s right, a 2012 player already well on the radar. And he’s not alone.

I only saw Sovay pitch one inning, but it was impressive. Fastball 85-88, hit 90, and showed a good curve at 73.
He’s listed as 6-foot-5 190, which may be a bit low on the weight side. Not that he’s chubby, he just has big, muscular legs.

Mechanically, things are pretty simple for such a big guy. However, he has one of those Tim Hudson-esque floating front feet (it strides towards the plate, then stops and starts heading toward the 1B line as his hips open up).

Josh Tobias, 2B/3B, 2011, Greensbor, N.C., Canes

Scouts talk about the sound a ball makes coming off a bat. That was the first thing that got my attention with Tobias. “CRACK!”, and a line drive screams off into left field. I made a note to not go too far anytime soon, so I could see his next at-bat. Then again, “CRACK!!”, even louder than the first, a line-drive to right-center on a breaking ball. I couldn’t get enough; I saw Tobias more than any other player at the tournament, getting to see him in 10 or 11 PAs. One ended in a walk, and I’ll be damned if fewer than seven of them resulted either in line drives or ground-liners that made it out of the infield in one hop. (I was also told I missed a long homer the day before.)

His swing is a bit unorthodox. It’s semi-long and he finishes with his hands flying high, sort of like a mini-right-handed Fred McGriff. But he has great bat speed and covers the plate completely with hands that thrash through the zone lightning quick.

It’s a point I’ve made before, but one ‘tool’ that I feel gets overlooked at times is just plain old hitability. Scouts like to look at the components; are the hands quick, is the swing short, does he have a good swing path, does he recognize pitches well, does he keep himself balanced, etc. Those are all important pieces in projecting a player’s future success, and by no means would I advocate disregarding them. But the bottom line is this: Some guys plain old find the barrel with consistency, and others (even the ones with quick hands and short strokes) do not. Those components are intended to project those who can and will find the barrel, but it’s a very complicated view of things. Simply put, the difference between a routine groundball to the SS and a liner that goes over his head is a few millimeters of difference on the bat. Despite the hands, the shortness of the swing, the balance, etc etc… some guys are extremely coordinated with that bat in their hands, and others are just so-so. And Josh Tobias is great.

Now, I don’t want to create the impression that Tobias has some Hunchback of Notre Dame swing; that’s not the case at all, it just may not be what Walt Hriniak would use as his model.

As comps, I see shades of both Gary Sheffield and Dmitri Young here. An ultra-fast bat and swing to hit for average, a guy who handles both breaking pitches and good heat, and some serious raw power.

Going forward, I have two question marks; one is future power. Tobias is 5-foot-9. Sure, he’s just 16 and may have some growth left, but Dad is only about 5-foot-10. Then again, he’s 16 and hitting homers with a wood bat. The size may limit his ceiling with regard to power, but don’t get caught up in that; this one might be a mold-breaker. The main concern for me is finding him a position. His arm is sub-par and comes with a screwy, flailing sidearm motion. His actions and hands are also quite questionable. Veteran scouts will swear they’ve seen future gold-glovers who couldn’t field a lick in their teens, but I’m pretty discouraged with Tobias’ D (especially since the arm means in you move him to OF, it’s got to be left).

Still, he’s the best all-around bat I saw this weekend. As if I didn’t already love him enough, I’m told he’s committed to the Gators for college (though, as always, the draft may change that). Again, he’s a 2011 guy, so this is very early hype. But I’m keeping a very close on him going forward.

Austin Anderson, SS/2B, 2010, Sorrento, Fla., Orlando Scorpions

Anderson bats left-handed with a beautiful line-drive stroke who uses all fields. Plus bat speed, very short, quick stroke and consistently made hard contact. Saw him pull a left-hander for a long single to right-center, and later scream a liner into the left center gap off a righty. He’s an above-average runner; I had him at 4.08 to first base. The swing really made an impression on me, though, and he looked great playing second. Heard he has committed to Mississippi.

Tyler Green, RHP, 2010, Lake Jackson, Texas, Texas Scout Team Yankees

There were like two more Tyler Green’s (or Tyler Greene’s) at this tournament. Popular baseball name, I guess (don’t forget the Cardinals shortstop).

Green threw 88-91 from his tall frame, and the pitch had some great third-base run on it. He’s got some filling out left to do, which means he could add more velocity as well. He showed a slurve that he needs to mold into a slower, straight overhand curve. But the fastball velocity and movement are worth getting excited about.

Ladson Montgomery, C, 2010, Jacksonville, Fla., Orlando Scorpions

The most impressive live-game pop time I got from a catcher at 1.93. That’s near the top of the charts for a high school catcher to begin with, but consider this: It was Montgomery’s fourth or fifth game behind the dish in the last 65 hours. (Being a catching prospect at some of these showcases is just unreal).

But Montgomery isn’t all catch and throw. He’s got a legit left-handed bat, with moderate loft and a smooth plane. He’s a small guy, standing just 5-foot-9 (which can actually be a good thing for catchers), so he’ll probably be more of a doubles guy instead of over-the-fence power. But he has monster legs for someone his age and really gets his lower half and trunk into his swing.

Jake Cave, LHP/OF, 2011, Hampton, Va., Canes

Now here’s a really interesting guy. Look at Cave, and he’s very unassuming physically; 6-foot-1 quite skinny, slim hips, does not look so athletic.

Then you put him on a mound and watch him throw an easy 88-91 with plus command and a curve that makes you think Zito.

Then, you can take him off the mound, put a bat in his hand, and watch him take simply vicious hacks and display some pretty incredible raw power. For icing on the cake, he’s a plus runner straightaway (4.09 through first) and cuts bags quite well.

He’s a little more advanced on the mound right now than at the plate, in my opinion. He was a bit hack-heavy, and swung and missed more than you’d like to see (mostly on bad balls). It’s hard to tell if that’s a real trait or just a guy at a showcase trying to get his money’s worth.

Either way, this is an incredibly talented kid for the ’11 class. Shades of Nick Markakis at the plate, and something like a more powerful Zito on the mound. If the draft were tomorrow, he might be a supplemental-round pick. But he’s got another year to grow. Look out.

Chevez Clarke, OF, 2010, Marietta, Ga., East Cobb Baseball

Every tool in the shed. Clarke is just an electric player, simply put. He may well be a first-round talent this June.

He’s got an incredibly athletic body, with plus speed. He’s well polished with the bat (I only saw three ABs, they were all from the left side; he switch hits). The stroke is lightning-quick through the zone and has a mild uppercut, and he recognized pitches well. He’s a well above average runner, and aggressive on the basepaths.

He reminds me a bit of Denard Span, with the potential to develop a bit more in the power department (he’s got longer limbs). Defensively, he showed a cannon, and he certainly has the speed for center fielder. No read on his routes or judgment, however. Not sure if he can play the infield, but he sure does have the athleticism, body type and arm.

Parks Jordan, 2B, 2010, Winston-Salem, N.C., Canes

Beautiful left-handed line-drive swing (reminded me of Seth Smith), though I didn’t see much over the fence power potential.

He struck out on a questionable call, and threw a pretty mild tantrum. Sort of slammed his helmet in the dugout and was pretty verbal (though not toward the umpire). A lot of scouts look down on stuff like this, but I see two sides to the coin; on one hand, maybe he does not deal with failure so well. But to me, it at least shows he gives a damn, and I like guys with a competitive streak.

He’s not a high-round guy to me right now (I’d say more fourth-sixth), but he’s worth keeping an eye on. He’s committed to the University of North Carolina, which is a hitters hell. But if he’s able to prove me wrong and develop some more power during his college years, he could climb.

Wagner Mateo, OF, Free Agent, Texas Scout Team Yankees

Ah, the legend is here.

I don’t want to be guilty of making judgments based on the two ABs and about 12 pitches I saw Wagner, but I was underwhelmed. Of course, it would be hard not to be when a kid signed the biggest bonus ever for a Dominican position player just a few months back. He struck out on four pitches his first at-bat, including missing a curveball by 18 inches. I don’t think that was an aberration; he’s got a pretty noisy front leg load that appears likely to screw with his timing.

You could see the power in the swing, however. This is a strong, physical kid with room left to grow.

And really, if the guy had a sloppy tournament, can you blame him? Growing up in poverty, then having $3.1 million essentially handed to you then taken away… I remember being 16 and having a crappy week on the field when I was fighting with my girlfriend. The pressure on all these kids shoulders is pretty remarkable, but Wagner’s situation almost defies words.

Dwight Smith, OF, 2011, Peachtree City, Ga., Canes

Wowee. Fastest bat I saw in the tournament, and if his swing needs any tuning, that’s for someone far smarter than me. Power to spare (despite being 5-foot-11), good plate coverage, quiet hands and load… he’s dialed in.

It stands to reason; this is the son of the former big leaguer of the same name.

He’s a great athlete and an above-average baserunner. However, it looked like things were a bit of an adventure in the outfield.

I think he’ll be a top-round draft pick in 2011.

Manny Machado, SS, 2010, Hialeah, Fla., Royals Baseball Club

I bet he doesn’t get past the first round come June.

Machado has a big (6-foot-3), athletic frame with plenty of filling out left. His actions at shortstop were graceful and smooth, and he seemed to have plenty of arm.

The exciting thing about Machado is his power potential. His swing was a little long, and he did hack a bit. But he was right on 90-plus mph fastballs, and generates a lot of loft with his long arms and aggressive cuts. If there’s one thing that will get teams excited, it’s a combination of power potential and athleticism at a key position. Check all three boxes for Machado.

I am a little concerned, however, about his ability to hit for average. He seems to be a fastball-only hitter right now (a great fastball hitter, but still…), and while his long arms generate power, they also generate a long swing.

Keep an eye on:

Jared Lakind, Texas Scout Team Yankees—Serious potential power in LHH 1B.
Shane Kennedy and Sean O’Brien, Orlando Scorpions—I lump them together because they’re both much like Machado; big, athletic, wiry SS with good actions and power potential.
Curt Britt, Canes—Chris Parmalee part II, I swear. 2012 draft-eligible. Remember him.
Landon Lassiter, Canes—Steady SS with good body and potential plus bat, another 2012 guy.
Ryan Keller, Braves Scout Team—CA RHP who resembles Curt Schilling, sat 87-89 but CB was subpar. 2011.
Chris Triplett, Royals Baseball Club—Athletic, plus defensive 2010 SS with plus speed. Limited power for now.
Lance McCullers, Midland Redskins—Only saw him in passing, but looked beautiful around the bag at SS. College scout mentioned he has FB to 94 on the mound, confirmed by several others, which is just crazy for a 2012 guy.
Dominic Jose, Royals Baseball Club—Athletic, lanky body, sweet LH swing, cannon arm. 2011.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Adam Guttridge 2009-11-02T08:24:15+00:00 Trust but Verify http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/trust-but-verify/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/trust-but-verify/#When:17:31:15
Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Adam Guttridge 2009-10-21T17:31:15+00:00 Projecting JJ Hardy http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/projecting-jj-hardy/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/projecting-jj-hardy/#When:04:31:15
Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Adam Guttridge 2009-10-07T04:31:15+00:00 Game Theory and the NL West http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/game-theory-and-the-nl-west/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/game-theory-and-the-nl-west/#When:19:01:15
Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Adam Guttridge 2009-09-17T19:01:15+00:00 Applying the Guttridge-Wang trade model to this year’s deadline trades (Part 2) http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/applying-the-guttridge-wang-trade-model-to-this-years-deadline-trades-part-/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/applying-the-guttridge-wang-trade-model-to-this-years-deadline-trades-part-/#When:04:03:15 MLB Trade Rumors, part one received a great deal of response. Many (though certainly not all) of those responses can be descirbed as somewhere between constructive criticism and "what kind of idiot are you?"

I'm not upset a bit by those who view the model with a grain (or boulder) of skepticism; I'll be the first to admit that this model is not yet in its final stage. To say nothing of the WAR projections (which, as I mentioned in part one, were chosen for the fact that they're publicly available moreso than their merit), the process of conforming the theoretical to the actual has some tweaking left to be done. However, I firmly believe that the broader concept of the model is not only valid, but represents an advance in our ability to evaluate the merits of trades.

In the interests of continuity, part two is being presented using the exact same version of the model as part one. However, based at least partially on the feedback, I'd like to spend a moment discussing possible tweaks I'd consider making to the model.

The most common complaint I received is that the model overvalues prospects. Based on the evaluations of the deadline deals presented here (which have come out overwhelmingly negative), this may seem to have some merit. As a counterpoint, however, I hold firm to the belief that teams trading for veterans at the deadline usually overpay. The best players in the game—the 15 most valuable hitters, the 15 most valuable pitchers—collectively average somewhere around five wins above replacement level over the course of a full season (and rarely end up displacing someone who is truly of replacement level value).

Two very important piecies of information need to be presented along with that: (1) Players within that category are rarely traded at the deadline (for this deadline, that's Matt Holliday and Cliff Lee) (2) Even when they are traded , over 60 percent of the season has already passed. The majority of deadline deals add around one win or less to a team's expected total for the remainder of the season. That's not trivial—every projected win counts. But whether or not a team makes the playoffs is, in the overwhelming majority of cases, decided by a larger margin than a typical deadline deal can provide. So are deadline deals irrelevant? Not at all. It's just rarely worth it to give up a whole lot of potential future value.

That said, there are two changes I'd consider making, along with their pros and cons. The first change would be to cap the amount of value a team can receive in prospects. As I mentioned in the comments, the model currently has no constraint for roster space, thus it would theoretically make sense to trade a player worth $6 million in surplus value for six players worth $1 million values. This can and should be addressed. However, when you're talking about a trade involving multiple prospects, the prospects don't all arrive at the majors at the same time. You're usually talking about a 23-year-old in Double-A, a 21-year-old in High-A, and an 18-year-old in Low-A. So there isn't necessarily a significant roster constraint issue when it comes to how their value will be realized in MLB. Additionally, their surplus value still retains it's full value in terms of trading capital. So if a team received $20 million surplus value worth of prospects, I have trouble on a logical level just arbitrarily knocking that down to $15 million or something, because it's not what they received, and there is always the possibility of making more trades.

The second change I'd make is identifying a "replacement level" for prospects, at which surplus value is zero. The Indians received Connor Graham from the Rockies for Rafael Betancourt, and he may be exactly the type of guy I'm describing. He's got a lot going for himself; a low-mid-90s fastball, a great groundball rate, a healthy strikeout rate, a relatively high draft position (fifth round), and general hugeness (6-foot-7, 235 pounds).

However, he's also got significant control issues, and was in High-A four months short of his 24th birthday. Connor Graham has an outside chance of being very valuable, a moderate chance of being moderately valuable, and a good chance of having no significant value. If you ranked the top 125 pitching prospects in the game, he would not be amongst them. From part one, the only prospect I may slide into this category would be Adam Russell. However, if we choose to accept their baseline surplus value as zero, it would stand to reason that we also scale back the value of some of the prospects who are not considered top-100 talents. From part one, this would mean Dexter Carter, Brian Price, Nick Hagadone, and Jason Knapp. This would perhaps make an average difference of roughly $2 million for each one of those players.

The major problem here is that some of these guys (notably Knapp and Hagadone) would be on the top-100 list if it were republished today; they're guys who were somewhat beneath the radar until having banner seasons so far in '09. But perhaps this is a fair penalty, as someone relatively new on the scene is inherently more risky. At least this method does avoid the issues of artificially subtracting value that exist with the 'quantity limiter' idea, and perhaps we can be comfortable just subjectively slotting whether or not somebody is one of the 250 or so best prospects in the game (or whatever number we end up being comfortable with).

Okay, onto the deals.

Matt Holliday from Oakland to St. Louis for Brett Wallace, Clayton Mortenson and Shane Peterson

One other thing that deserves mention: by saying the Cardinals "lost" or gave up $4.35 million of surplus value, that is the present value of a loss to be "paid" over the six to eight years that it will take the prospects in this deal to realize their pre-free agency value. $4.35 million is not a huge figure, and furthermore, Peterson and Mortenson are pretty much examples of the "replacement-level prospect" described above.

In other words, I love this deal for the Cardinals. If anybody should be mortgaging big future chips for a deadline run, it's them, and Holliday is the type of player who really makes a large difference to your playoff odds.

Sure, Wallace is a blue chip prospect; Baseball America him the 40th-best prospect in the game, and that may be selling him well short. Losing him is assuaged significantly by the fact that if Holliday walks, St. Louis will have two additional draft picks before the second round in 2010. Besides, you weren't going to get Matt Holliday for a bag of balls.

Furthermore, I could absolutely see Holliday deciding to stay in St. Louis. He may be a Boras client, but he's a poster boy for the heartland; he's from Oklahoma and is a married man who probably doesn't want to raise his two young sons in New York City. And he loves playing in the National League. Unless Atlanta has the bucks to make a play for him (which I find unlikely), I'm not sure there's a destination Holliday would prefer to St. Louis.

I've scouted Shane Peterson. While he's had quite a nice year for himself thus far, he's not a guy who is very deep in terms of either tools or projection. And the production, while quite strong, has not been so overwhelming that it's really worth getting excited over. Mortenson's largest qualification is that he's never been totally shelled, but he's never shown the least bit of excellence either.

Freddy Sanchez to the Giants for Tim Alderson

The evaluation of this deals hinges on one's perception from Alderson, who I slipped into the 50-75 prospect range despite his preseason Baseball America ranking of 46th based on reports that his stuff has been slipping. However, he's still 20 years old and is a well-above-average starter in Double-A—that's a rare commodity.

The Giants needed to do something to bolster their anemic offense, and Sanchez will help somewhat. But their downside is pretty large here; not only with Alderson, but if Sanchez gets the other 180 or so plate appearances he needs to reach 650, his 2010 option for $10 million vests automatically. (And barring injury, it will—otherwise, why was he acquired?). That's a pretty steep price, and if the 2008 or 2005 version of Sanchez shows up next year—an increasing possibility as he creeps higher into his 30s—it's a big 'ole stinker.

That's quite a generous 2010 projection for Sanchez, and quite a conservative overall projection for Alderson. I'll grant that the Giants had to do something. But they paid pretty dearly in terms of risk for quite a lukewarm upside.

In fact, let's use what I described as the most valuable aspects of this model—the ability to evaluate ranges of outcomes—to see how bad things might turn out for the Giants. Let's say Alderson becomes basically a solid no. 2 starter, and Sanchez next year plays like he did in '08 after his option vests.

Yikes. Quite a doozy for San Francisco. Of course, that's a bad (though certainly not worst case) scenario for the Giants. But the reason I don't like this deal is that the opposite is not a real possibility. In other words, the best thing they could hope for is that they get a couple months of an okay-but-not-great second baseman and increase their playoff odds very slightly, and Alderson never turns out. Lots of potential for downside, not so much for upside.

Orlando Cabrera to the Twins from the A's for Tyler Landendorf

The A's traded Cabrera, Holliday, and $500,000 for Brett Wallace and three guys who could be generously labeled 'projects' without very large upside. I really don't like this deadline for them.

"Type A" is in quotes there, and knocked down in value from $7 million to $2 million, because Cabrera's contract states the club agrees not to offer him arbitration. So the only way the Twins get comp picks here is if Cabrera signs before December 1, which is pretty unlikely.

It's probably not nearly as dramatic a move as Twins fans would have liked to see, and Cabrera is indeed quite unlikely to be any sort of game-changer for the Twins playoff hopes. But he helps a bit, and it's a move that was a no-brainer to make.

Nick Johnson to the Marlins from the Nationals for Aaron Tompson

Nick Johnson should formally add the words "if healthy" to his birth name, because they're always used there anyway. That projection assumes Johnson is as likely to finish out the year healthy as he has been for the past three years, so it's ugly. The Marlins did very well here, though the Nats are paying the salary, and Aaron Thompson is a big-time project. Their upside is pretty large, especially considering that he's effectively taking the at-bats of Bonifacio. The Marlins could wind up with around a two-win (and salary-free) deadline upgrade here. Teams usually give up two of their top five prospects for that.

Jarrod Washburn to Detroit from Seattle for Luke French and Mauricio Robles

Hmmm. I'd like to write this off for the Tigers as one of those 'had to do something' moves, and maybe I can.

A lot of that depends on Luke French. Until this season, French was a guy who got by on control and home run prevention (despite lacking a very strong groundball rate). He had abysmal strikeout rates until seemingly figuring out how to miss a bat in '09. He's still quite a low-upside guy, and I'm not concerned the Tigers will seriously regret his loss. It's more that I'm wondering if the Tigers actually made an upgrade here.

"But wait... Jarrod Washburn is amongst the league leaders in ERA!" Yes, but in reality, he's still exactly what he's been the last two seasons: a fifth starter. The right combination of extreme BABIP luck, a flukish dip in home run rate, and Safeco Field can do wonders for anyone. The Tigers aren't fools, and certainly gave some consideration to these issues. But I think the shiny ERA and recognizable name still helped foster the notion that they might actually be getting a meaningful shot in the arm here. They're not.

French, Robles (who seems pretty high upside, even if he's a long ways off), and a relatively hefty salary addition are a lot to give up for six runs (which may be a pretty generous estimate).

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Adam Guttridge 2009-08-10T04:03:15+00:00 Applying the Guttridge-Wang trade model to this year’s deadline trades (Part 1) http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/applying-the-guttridge-wang-trade-model-to-this-years-deadline-trades/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/applying-the-guttridge-wang-trade-model-to-this-years-deadline-trades/#When:05:06:15
The WAR figures here are compiled from publicly available calculations of WAR, to which I apply aging factors and calculate weighted averages. For Major Leaguers, I use WAR calculations from FanGraphs, which are wOBA and UZR based for hitters, and FIP-based for pitchers. If and when minor league data is used in a projection (which generally means a player who has spent more than just rehab time in the minors over the past 2.5 years), I use MLE FIPs from Minor League Splits for pitchers, and use Minor League Splits' MLE on hitters to produce a wOBA calculation, which I then convert to WAR using Fangraphs' methodology. The minor league data will rarely be a big part of the equation, however; for anyone with less than a year of service time, we are using Victor's previously described prospect slotting method. And trades of players with, say, 1.5 years of service time are semi-rare.

Are these the figures I would use if I were sitting in a front office? Nope. But for the purposes of understanding a club's rationale and the implications of a trade, this will do fine. This methodology also takes into account 2009 data when when projecting value for the remainder of 2009, something many other systems fail to do. As in, if a player had wOBAs of .320, .335, and .307 over the last three seasons (which would predict a .318, using 5-3-2 weighting), and was at a .343 wOBA halfway through 2009, his projection from here forth is not still .318. This should be obvious, but it's a common error.

I'm using Victor Wang's prospect values, which you can see here. Victor's work on this is excellent; I simply made some adjustments to reflect our new economic climate and changed how he discounted future value for prospects ever so slightly. I'm using $4 million per WAR now; that is just a tick below what it was last offseason. And my primary source for slotting prospects was Baseball America's top 100 list, cross-referenced with grades from Jon Sickels. Obviously, there's a bit of room for subjectivity here, but it rarely makes more than $1 million difference if you decide to bump someone up or down a slot.

Also, for all the trades here, I'm examining them from the perspective of the contender. If you recall from the article, these are not zero-sum equations; just because one team "lost" $2.2 million of surplus value does not mean the other team gained the same amount, due to divergent near-term goals (ie. Cliff Lee is worth more to the Phillies than the Pirates) and varying ability to replace a player.

Now, onto the deals.

Cliff Lee from Cleveland to Philadelphia for Carlos Carrassco, Jason Knapp, Jason Donald and Lou Marson

While nobody heading to Cleveland is a blue chip prospect (with the possible exception of Jason Knapp), the Phillies gave up an awful lot of value here. Baseball America had Donald and Marson each in the 60s on their top 100 list; I find both slottings to be at least a bit generous, especially with Donald. I slotted him down to a 75-100 hitting prospect based on his subpar '09. I could easily have done the same for Marson. If I did, the trade would be a virtual wash from Philly's perspective. However, I easily could have bumped Knapp up a bit too; he's obviously an incredible talent, but 18-year-old pitchers are, to say the least, risky, and there's a lot more value in someone who can start contributing in three months than three years.

Philly would have done very well to turn up their nose to Ben Francisco and see if they could convince Cleveland to drop one of the lesser prospects from the deal. Francisco is nothing you can't find on the waiver wire, and I find it hard to believe Cleveland wouldn't have dealt Lee alone for Carrasco, Marson, and either Donald or Knapp. Here's how that would have looked:

That said, I still like the move the Phillies made; they managed to get a year and a half of a frontline starting pitcher with a well below market deal without touching Kyle Drabek, Dominic Brown or Michael Taylor. Besides, they've done really well to get themselves into some very favorable long-term contracts with the right players (Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins and Cole Hamels). Combine that with their recent success, and Philly can afford to trade away a future No. 3 starter and instead plan to buy one on the FA market when needed.

As far as Cleveland is concerned, in terms of raw value, they did very well or even great here. But which way is the ship going? I rationalized the DeRosa trade a few weeks ago by accepting that they were going to try to contend next year, and reasoning that a cheap seventh/eighth inning arm (like Chris Perez) could be an important chip in that process. That almost justified giving up DeRosa in return for such mediocre ceiling.

But while Carrasco and Marson are likely ready to contribute on some level right now, are they going to be impact players in some sort of playoff push in 2010? Very unlikely. In giving up Lee, a No. 1 starter signed for $10 million next year, Cleveland has made it clear that 2010 is not their time. I feel for Mark Shapiro, really; this team has had some awful luck the past couple seasons. But for the sake of his own job security, you might think he'd have wanted to be more aggressive with his 2010 vision.

Victor Martinez from Cleveland to Boston for Justin Masterson, Nick Hagadone and Bryan Price

I know that since I have spreadsheets full of baseball statistics on my computer, I'm supposed to have a man-crush on Theo Epstein. But I just do not see the logic here.

So Victor Martinez gives you the ability to play the matchup game especially well between Kevin Youkilis, David Ortiz and Jason Varitek. But you give up Justin Masterson, Nick Hagadone and Bryan Price for that?

Martinez is locked in at a nice bargain price for 2010 (even with the salary escalator he receives for being traded). And sure, Boston is awash in young pitching for the time being.

But to me, this is like Bill Gates paying a million bucks for a haircut. Does it provide him some value? Yup. Can he afford it? Totally. But that doesn't mean it was a good deal for him. Cleveland probably should have accepted Masterson straight-up, at most with a Jason Place to be named later sprinkled in for effect.

Back to Cleveland; combined with the Lee deal, they've rounded up four of perhaps the top 60 pitching prospects in the game, plus a very good looking young starter in Masterson, before you even get to Marson and Donald. This is the Oakland/Texas model of the past couple years: building the farm system via trades. You can agree or disagree with the goal, but you have to admit that once they made up their minds, they knocked it out of the park.

Jake Peavy from San Diego to the White Sox for Aaron Poreda, Clayton Richard, Adam Russell and Dexter Carter

Ladies and gentlemen, behold possibly the worst deadline deal in recent memory.

Jake Peavy may or may not pitch again this year. Over the last year and a half, he's been on the shelf for roughly one-third of the time. And, he's locked into a deal that pays him more than he would receive on the open market today.

Now, the current projection I have for Peavy may well be a bit harsh; when healthy, he's one of the top five to eight starters in the game, and that projection would imply he's somewhere around the 25th. But I don't feel comfortable just completely ignoring the injury history, especially since they included elbow issues last year.

Just for the sake of argument, here's how Peavy looks if he essentially returns to '06-'07 form and stays there:

It's still a terrible deal.

Now, you know what? This is going to be a silent killer; like the Carlos Lee contract. What I mean is, nobody really pays attention to how bad of a contract Carlos Lee has because he's meeting expectations with the bat, and Minute Maid Park makes it look even better, so no perception exists that Houston didn't get the player they signed. If you were a .300 hitter, then signed a $15 million contract, and continued to hit .300, nobody calls you overpaid, even if you were only worth $12 million a year to begin with.

The worst aspects of that contract (the $4 million or so a year he's overpaid along with the length of the contract the late years) are invisible; when you're watching Lee put up a .900 OPS, it doesn't immediately strike you that his overpriced contract comes at the expense of other areas of the roster, or that he's going to be a huge drag on the organization pretty soon.

I imagine it will be the same with Peavy. Regardless of what happens for the rest of 2009, 12 months from now, all people will really think about is that Jake Peavy is one of the top pitchers in the game, and Kenny Williams went and got him. The fact that controlling fourth starters and middle relief pitchers like Richard and Russell through arbitration (instead of buying them on the open market) is a tremendous asset for an organization is just not what's on the mind of a ChiSox fan while he's watching Jake Peavy shut out the Tigers next July.

The fact that what you're paying Peavy could have bought you much more value on the open market will be forgotten by then. Odds are Poreda is not going to be leading a rotation into a World Series in the next couple years. Carter may not have a year of service time before Peavy's contract is up. So, despite their value (both present in terms of trading capital, and future in terms of on-field), nobody is going to say "Oh ####, Kenny Williams blew it" anytime soon, or likely ever.

So, unless Peavy continues to blow himself up with injuries, Kenny Williams is going to get praised for this move, whether in October, next July, 2011, or all of the above. But the people doing the praising will not be taking an adequate measure of the pros and cons of the choice he made at the time, which was abominable.

If you saw a guy leaving a poker table with $50,000, you'd think he played like a master. But you weren't there to see that he sat down with $500,000. Kenny Williams is that guy.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Adam Guttridge 2009-08-03T05:06:15+00:00 Scouting the FSL http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/scouting-the-fsl1/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/scouting-the-fsl1/#When:05:04:15 Baseball Prospectus. Contrary to popular belief, BP and THT writers actually do not engage in Los-Angeles-gang-style warfare when they come into contact with each other.

Furthermore, Kiley and I have a lot in common: we're both the same age and from the same general area, and we both have our feet wet in MLB front offices. And, we're both currently seeking to make that our full-time vocation. Also, Kiley's experience has been more in the scouting side of things, while mine has been on more of the statistical side (though we've each done a fair amount of crossing over). So watching the game with him and being able to pick his brain about a certain player's swing path, or the finer points of the difference between 40 power and 50 power (on the 20-80) scale, was an enriching experience.

The Miracle have an awfully stacked roster. On display today were top prospects Ben Revere, Chris Parmelee, and Joe Benson, with some interesting players sprinkled elsewhere throughout the roster. The game was a laugher; a 13-0 rout in the Miracle's favor. As such, the Reds pulled top catching prospect Devin Mesoraco early. Since I got a good look (six plate appearances) at all the Miracle hitters, and I'll see Sarasota again soon, I'm going to withhold reports on Sarasota for now, and just focus on the Miracle roster.

Ben Revere, CF, MIN

Background: Revere led the minors in batting last year with a .379 average. He is consistently rated in the upper crust of position player prospects in the game.

What I Saw: Revere is not the dainty leadoff hitter who hopes to slap and chop. While his frame is small, he is muscular, and he takes aggressive cuts. While his swing doesn't generate a ton of force, his hands are lightning quick through the zone. He sprays medium liners and hard grounders all over the field, and occasionally (as in his first at-bat: a right-center triple) he'll generate enough loft/torque to penetrate a gap. He's no Juan Pierre, but he's also no Johnny Damon. He'll max out at five to seven homers a year, but he should hit enough leg-doubles and triples.

His most impressive offensive trait is that he just plain old finds the barrel. He covers the plate well, and despite an aggressive cut, he managed to get good wood on practically every hack he took. Despite a mild lunge in his swing, he never found himself out of balance. One of his three hits was on a slow breaking ball, and a hard groundout up the middle—where he was robbed with an amazing play by Reds second baseman Jacob Kahaulelio—was on a slurvy slider.

Kiley timed Revere at 3.94 and 4.02 to first base, which is quite impressive. He later scored from first on a double and displayed great agility and gait. His stolen base record thus far in the FSL (33-for-47) doesn't live up to his raw speed, so he needs to do some work on reading pitchers.

Defensively, Revere showed amazing range on a left-center flyout. Great jump, great route, and just covered an unbelievable distance. Later, he made a highlight reel over-the-shoulder catch on a fliner to the warning track. He got a bit turned around, but balls hit directly over the head will do that to anyone.

Outlook: Offensively, Kiley and I thought Chone Figgins to be a very similar profile of player. But we better make that Chone Figgins who is also a perennial .300 hitter. He's an advanced hitter for age 21, and he doesn't have major adjustments to make; he just needs to continue getting stronger and seeing better pitchers. The ceiling may not be incredibly high, but his odds of being an above-average player are as high as most any 21-year-old you may find.

Chris Parmelee, OF/1B, Twins

Background: Parmelee was taken 20th overall out of a California high school in 2006. He hit 14 homers and drew 52 walks in just under 300 plate appearances as a 20-year-old in the MWL last year before injuring his wrist.

What I Saw: The first thing that struck me with Parmelee is that he's a bad-body guy. When he was drafted, he was a shade under 200 pounds; he's now more in the 230 range, and it's soft. First base is now his likely destination, which obviously hurts his value.

He's got a real top-hand-heavy swing, which means a couple of things: A) he'll probably get destroyed by any left-handed pitcher with a decent breaking ball, and B) he'll be pretty pull oriented and have poor outside plate coverage. In fact, Parmelee seemed to have trouble with breaking pitches in general, finding himself well out front on below-average FSL stuff a couple times during the night.

He takes a vicious hack, and if the pitcher misses the holes in his swing, he has plenty of raw strength to make them pay. Parmelee didn't chase anything out of the zone all night, and that's not a fluke; he's got a great walk rate for someone his age.

Outlook: Parmelee has two things we love to salivate over: homers and walks. And for someone his age, he provides a very high dose of both. But the problem is, he won't have anything else. He won't have positive defensive value. He'll be a base clogger.

The key is, will he cut the strikeouts without sacrificing too much of the power? It would be very easy to just say, "well, he's 21, so he has plenty of time to figure it out." That's true, but you want to get a read on the likelihood of that happening. On one hand, he's got an advanced awareness of the strike zone and plus bat speed. On the other hand, he has a lot of trouble with breaking pitches and controlling the outer edge of the plate. One thing is for certain: as a guy who brings nothing to the table but a bat, he won't be an impact player if he's Adam Dunn Lite.

Joe Benson, RF/CF, Twins

Background: A second-round pick in 2006, Benson chose baseball even though he was a highly recruited running back. He hit .248/.326/.382 in the MWL last year before injuring his back midseason.

What I Saw: Benson has a strong, athletic body with some moderate filling out left. He has plus bat speed and covers the plate well. Benson showed strong opposite-field power on a right field flinout. The swing is a bit opposite-field oriented, if anything, and generates decent leverage. He did not chase pitches out of the zone.

He showed a strong right field arm, though I did not see any play that shed light on his range. He was fast on the bases, however.

Outlook: In all honesty, I'd like to see a bit more of Benson before I decide whether his upside is a stronger Ryan Spilborghs or a more athletic Tim Salmon. He reminds me of both those players, though, and they both have value.

Quick Hits

Alexander Soto, C, Twins
Soto showed a great arm and plus power. He rocked a 410-foot home run to left-center field on a chest-high 90 mph fastball. He later flied out to the center field warning track on a curveball despite being noticeably off balance (out front) on the pitch. His swing could use a bit of refinement; he needs to simplify his load and subsequent weight transfer so he can handle offspeed pitches better. He swings as if he's trying to murder the ball, which I like, but he needs to get it under better control. But I like him a lot as a sleeper.

Estarlin de los Santos, SS, Twins
He rocked two wall-scraping doubles and showed good raw power from each side of the plate. His smallish frame limits his future home run totals, but he'll at least have gap and moderate over the fence power. He was playing second on this day, but I'm not sure why. He looked quite rangey and, while he never had to show it off, the arm looked at least adequate for short.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Adam Guttridge 2009-07-27T05:04:15+00:00 Scouting the FSL http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/scouting-the-fsl/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/scouting-the-fsl/#When:05:05:15
As I was leaving for the ballpark, my phone started going nuts. People were texting to tell me the news of Michael Jackson's death. As I pulled up to the ballpark, 'Thriller' was blaring from aging speakers. The seventh inning stretch was three minutes of a seven-foot grinning Blue Jay dancing to 'Beat It' on top of the dugout, Jackson leg kicks and all. Somehow I don't think that's quite the memorial the King of Pop had in mind, but for its surreal tackiness, it's something I'll never forget.

Onto the game. The Dunedin roster is pretty darn stacked. Justin Jackson (#4 on Baseball America's preseason Jays list) and Kevin Ahrens (#6) were on display, in addition to several lesser-known-yet-interesting guys. Charlotte, on the other hand, is an awfully dry roster.

Justin Jackson, SS, TOR

Background: Jackson was the 45th overall pick out of high school in 2007. He hit .238/.340/.368 in the MWL last year.

What I saw: Defensively, Jackson is a picture of composure and fluidity. He's got some of the smoothest actions and softest hands you'll find. Graceful is the word to describe it; he seems to just glide into the play with ease, never a touch out of balance. There wasn't a play where he had to show me much arm, but in warmups and routine plays, it seems at least adequate for shortstop.

Jackson has a squat stance and a short, well-leveraged stroke. He took aggressive cuts twice on high fastballs (both of which he fouled back), and showed impressive bat speed without coming out of his shoes. He'll have decent power as is, but he's got a fair amount of filling out left.

Jackson looked over matched at times. Anything offspeed gave him fits, and he never found the barrel even on 'mistake' fastballs. (He missed one or two center-cut 88 mph fastballs in hitter's counts, and froze on an inner-half 89 mph fastball for a called strike three.) In other words, he lacks exceptional hand-eye coordination when it comes to the bat (which sounds weird to say, since he's the epitome of coordination on the field).

Pitch recognition was part of that too. It wasn't that he was hacking out of the zone so much, but you could see his body and hands sort of 'guessing' on every pitch (fastball or offspeed), which left him in a poor position much of the time. He has a strong walk rate, but I couldn't help but think that it's at least partially the product of a low contact rate...as in, when you're swinging and missing so much, and not chasing pitches out of the zone, you're going to find yourself awfully deep in counts quite often.

Outlook: For now, a good comp might be a former Blue Jay shortstop, Alex S. Gonzalez: poor batting average skills, but enough pop to remain interesting at the plate (though the plus D gives him a leg up). However, Jackson is just 20, and has the tools to up that projection considerably. The tricky part is, he has the quick hands and short stroke to hit for average. It's just a question of how far he can get with offspeed pitches and finding the barrel with consistency.

Kevin Ahrens, 3B, TOR

Background: Taken 16th overall in the '07 draft out of a Texas high school, Ahrens hit .259/.329/.367 at Lansing last year as a 19-year-old.

What I saw: Ahrens struck me as awfully vanilla, even though he went 3-for-3 and drew a walk. I only saw him swinging righty; he's a switch hitter.

I like his body; he's got a strong lower half, and he looks strong all around. But that strength isn't coupled with much quickness, and his stroke (at least as a right-handed batter) doesn't generate much loft.

Other than showing a gun for an arm, I saw no great tool or great potential here. No great athleticism, no quick wrists, not much power potential. He sprayed medium-hard ground balls through the infield all day and never looked overmatched at the plate. But I was kind of left saying 'wheres the beef'?

Outlook:I don't see much here. Then again, he's 20 in High-A, and you don't get taken 16th overall for charity. But he doesn't have a very high ceiling.

Eric Thames, OF, TOR

Background: Drafted in the seventh round out of Pepperdine in '08, '09 is Thames' pro debut. By starting him in High-A, the Jays obviously think highly of him. He's more than holding his own thus far, making that decision seem wise.

What I saw: Thames has a squat, muscular, and athletic body, which was what first caught my eye. His left-handed swing is beautiful and smooth, and he showed the ability to use all fields with good authority, even versus a left-handed pitcher. He has above-average bat speed. The swing might be a tad long.

He mashed a 380' lineout to center field on a left-handed slider. Seemed like an above-average runner underway, though he doesn't appear to have great first-step quickness.

Outlook: Thames doesn't have a ton of projection left, but he can flat-out hit. He may not have enough power to man a corner, and based on the fact that he was DHing on this day, I'd imagine he's not a plus defensive outfielder (though he is athletic). He's got some time to figure out how to get the most of his power, as he's 22. But even if he's not a guy who can hit 20+ homers a year, he could hit .280 with a strong walk rate and a lot of doubles.

Quick Hits

• I saw a a guy with 165 IP in the majors, and he wasn't here on rehab. That doesn't happen so much in the FSL. But he's not a pitcher anymore; he's an outfielder. His name is Adam Loewen, and he can't hit. But he can scream "F*&k!" really loud after most of his at-bats, and he appears to know this.

• Ryan Royster gets mentioned here because he blows my mind, but not in the way you'd usually like while prospecting. In 2007, Royster hit .329 with 30 home runs as a 20-year-old in the Sally league, and I haven't got the slightest clue how. I wouldn't believe if he hit .229. He's a big, slow, lumbering guy with a big, slow, lumbering swing. And swing he does; he didn't take a pitch until his third at-bat. Whether it was two feet outside or 12 inches high, a curve in the dirt or a fastball at the eyes, Royster will swing, and he will usually miss by six inches. I don't know how somebody who was so good so recently could be this bad.

• John Tolisano, a Jays second baseman, can hit a bit. But only from the left side, I think. From the right side, he just pokes at the ball with a short stroke and no outside plate coverage. Instead of the normal B/T R-R who starts hitting lefty, it wouldn't surprise me if Tolisano is a natural B/T L-R who picked up hitting righty to see if it works out. It's a good swing from the left side, but he had trouble picking up breaking balls from either side. I'd keep him on my radar though.

• Reid Fronk, an outfielder, was the most exciting player on the Rays' roster in my eyes. He's got plus pitch recognition and a swing that generates a lot of leverage. He's got some wheels, too; probably wouldn't blow you away with his 60-yard dash time, but he's agile and quick. He loses points for sporting a ninth-grader's mustache, but I see him as a Darren Bragg with slightly better pop.

• Moises Sierra, the Jays right fielder, showed a cannon for an arm. At the plate, his swing is a bit clumsy, but he's very strong.

• Rays starter Darin Downs had one of the more interesting lines you'll find; 5.2 IP, 10 hits, 6 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 10 K, 1 HR. Wow. He's having a nice year, but is way too old for the FSL. Nice big-breaking curve, though, which sat around 73.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Adam Guttridge 2009-07-06T05:05:15+00:00 The Guttridge-Wang trade model http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-guttridge-wang-trade-model/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-guttridge-wang-trade-model/#When:05:05:15 The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties believe they will benefit.
–Milton Freidman

Both as a fan and a professional, I’ve seen trades assembled and evaluated from an a subjective and all-too-imprecise platform.

Take this hypothetical quote for an example. It may be what you’d read in a newspaper or what you’d hear if you had an executive on the phone:

We're trading this veteran because he's getting too expensive and we're not contending. He's still a good player, but we're getting a decent pitcher who's under control for four more years, and their #2 prospect who was a first-rounder. We forfeit the draft picks we'd get for him next June, but I think it's worth it. Besides, we've got a good replacement waiting in the wings.

Obviously, nobody is making a trade based on the above statement alone—it's an oversimplification, though it's at least partially representative of the way many decisions are made. But what you have above is a multitude of disparate information. When considering such a deal it will be impossible to precisely gauge the value of each bit of information, balance it, and compare it to alternative strategies without a framework to evaluate and organize the risks and benefits.

Even holding a spreadsheet with the most accurate five-year total value forecasts of the players involved, I think it would still be virtually impossible to balance the relative value of the divergent aspects of such a scheme (unless the deal was just comically lopsided, and those cases are very rare). Don't believe that?

Then tell me, what's the value of the fact that the pitcher in the above deal is in arbitration for four more years? Is the discount he will receive by virtue of being in the arbitration process a more valuable or less valuable than receiving Type A compensation picks? And that's just a single and relatively minor point of a much more complex deal.

What's being advocated is basically managerial (in other words, internal) accounting. In industry, we make a decision according to the bottom line. "I have to pay $x million for this piece of equipment, which depreciates at a rate of $n per year. I could sell the old unit for $y. I expect to get $r per year in additional revenue from the superior productivity, which is a better return on investment than I get elsewhere. But we'd have a month of downtime, which costs us $p, and we'd have to add an employee to operate it at the cost of $q."

Again, can you imagine how muddled this decision would get if the manager(s) in charge simply evaluated the information more or less in their head, without the aid of the balance sheet?

It is clear that one person, or a group of people, will not be able to precisely evaluate and balance all the information contained in a trade (let alone multiple offers) without a prevailing framework to organize, sort, and balance the inputs.

I created such a framework, which became part of the 'toolbox' I showed to prospective employers (MLB executives) during the Winter Meetings in Las Vegas. I had been initially flattered by their response. That is until one executive responded "Oh, cool… kind of like they do at The Hardball Times." Damn—here I was thinking I had been original.

Victor Wang was the author of the work the exec had been referencing. Incidentally, Victor contacted me after my Winter Meetings article as a fellow job-seeker soliciting advice. He was glad to hear the news that his work had caught the attention of a prominent executive, and we gradually began comparing notes on our respective models.

Victor and I agreed on the major points:

A) That virtually all pertinent aspects of a trade can be converted into economic values. This is obvious in the major cases; a 3 WAR player has an inherent market value (currently around $13m per year). But we can also derive economic values for potential compensation picks, contract risk, prospects in A-ball, and more.

B) That surplus value is the currency of exchange. For example, suppose teams are paying $4.5m per win on the open market. You have a 2 WAR third baseman who is under contract for $6m. Thus, he carries $3m in surplus value; he is a $9m value that you only have to pay $6m for. In a vacuum, you should not trade him unless you receive $3m surplus value in return. If you were to trade him straight-up for another third baseman worth $6m and earning $6m (again, in a vacuum, and assuming these players are both on one-year deals) you have unquestionably decreased your assets.

C) Trades are not zero-sum equations. Primarily due to the fact that teams have divergent near-term strategies (and also varying ability to replace a player) it is entirely possible—even common—that both teams in a trade benefit.

There were some areas of disagreement.

1) For prospects, I had simply been running a current projection and projecting forth using a standard aging curve. This is problematic, due to the fact that (when using proper figures) virtually no 22-year-old will project as an All Star if he simply follows the standard aging curve from the present to his peak. Virtually all top-caliber performers have 'jumped' that curve at some point in their careers.

I first thought this impediment to be a fair penalty based on the inherent risk of prospects, but Victor had come up with a better solution. By studying past prospect lists of major publications, Victor was able to assign economic values to different 'slots' of prospects. As in, if Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, and John Sickels seem to agree that Jhoulys Chacin is between the 15th and 25th best pitching prospect in the game, we can use Victor's research (and a few basic financial calculations) to determine the present economic value of that grade. You can see Victor's work on these valuations here.

2) I've convinced Victor to adopt my future value discount and inflation figures. The way he had been calculating things was incorrectly inflating the net present surplus value of future receipts, because he had inflation set higher than his discount rate. To convert that into plain English; what is more valuable—2.5 WAR projected for 2010 or 2.5 WAR projected for 2013? 2010, of course, for two reasons:

&8226; You get to realize the value more quickly,
&8226; There's far less risk in a projection one year away than four years away.

The model now makes a more accurate account of this, and it makes a huge difference.

&8226; As far as organization (which is the whole point), we're combining models. The "process tree" framework Victor used to illustrate potential outcomes will be used, with some tweaking of the "branch"-level coefficients. For the projected values along the timeline, we will use using my spreadsheet model, now with Victor's prospect valuation.

Using the Matt Holliday trade as an example, here's how the Guttridge-Wang model looks:

For some explanation: The change in contention odds and its value is sort of a "dumb" calculation, in that it's not intended to be precise. Baseball Prospectus estimated that making the playoffs is worth, all told, $40m to an organization. For the purposes of this calculation, teams are just subjectively slotted as contenders or non-contenders.

This is because...
{exp:list_maker}It's not practical, nor desirable, to use a current projection (like 84.6 wins) as a starting point. Especially during the offseason, so much can change in terms of roster construction and competition between the time of a deal and the season that it doesn't make sense to fixate on a particular number, and
I'm confident we can do a decent job of subjectively slotting a team as contenders or not. {/exp:list_maker}
Thus, to calculate the change in contention odds, we're going with a simple premise. A team who wins 83 games has only the slightest chance of making the playoffs. A team who wins 95 has only the slightest chance of not making it. In that sense, you could say each marginal win added to a contending team increases their playoff chances by about 8%. (Yes, I'm aware it's not actually that simple. But it's a pretty good estimate).

Holliday improves the A's, whom I slotted as a contender (I had them right around 81 wins pre-trade, but the Angels were looking quite weak) by about 2.4 wins. Thus, they're about 19 percent more likely to make the playoffs than before the deal—quite a large figure. So, being 19.1 percent more likely to earn $40m means he has added an expected surplus value of around $7.5m to the A's.

Now, onto my spreadsheet model:

As you can see, this mock-up is from the Rockies' perspective. Remember that because of divergent goals and varying ability to replace players, the deals aren't zero-sum equations; the fact that I assess the Rockies at a loss of $4.25m does not mean the A's gained the same amount. I presented Victor's process-tree from the A's perspective and my spreadsheet model from the Rockies perspective, just to present a taste of each—to fully evaluate a trade, you need to assess each side.

Now, as far as that $4.25m loss for the Rockies… is that the real value of this model—being able to say that a team "lost" $4.25m (as opposed to, say, $3.81m), or gained $4.1m in their franchise value?

Well, only sort of. It is valuable for that reason. Even if we accept that the projected values and salaries are only 90 percent accurate to their optimal baseline (which would be a very low threshold that I'm positive we've met), there's a great deal of value in being able to establish that bottom line.

However, the real beauty of this model is how it allows an organization to examine all the possibilities. What if the Rockies' scouts are big believers in Carlos Gonzalez, and believe there's a good chance he'll be an All-Star caliber player by 2011 (a highly implausible scenario in my opinion, but that's beside the point)? Well, we can plug that scenario into the model, and see how the trade would look if it panned out that way:

If things work out that way, it's a great deal for the Rockies. Now, what if the "stall" experienced by Gonzalez during '07-'08 is indicative of a very early peak, and he's really just a toolsy 5th-outfielder, a la Reggie Taylor (which I regard as equally implausible as the All-Star scenario)? Plugging it into the model, we would see that it would be a horrible deal for the Rockies.

What if murmurs of Huston Street having some shoulder issues are true? What if he misses half a season at some point prior to free agency? Plug that into the model, and see how it affects the bottom line. What if Greg Smith develops into a passable 3rd starter instead of a 5th starter? Plug it in. What if we feel Seth Smith is far more valuable than the projection is giving him credit for? Plug it in.

This is the real value of this model for an organization; you must take the baseline as a starting point, sure—but plugging all the reasonable or anticipated deviations will allow you to get a clear picture of the range of possibilities, put a quantifiable value on the subjective parts of the evaluation, and let you pick your spots in terms of risk most effectively.

The above models don't contain anything any team isn't already considering in a trade; no new information is really being introduced. It's just that the information, instead of being disparate, non-quantified, and unorganized, is now tied into a single platform with a single unit of value and presented in a now-intelligible manner. Where once it was too overwhelming to accurately account for, it is now clear, flexible, and actionable.

The hypothetical trade I quoted in the opening represents the way our minds distill these disparate inputs, probabilities, and values. General managers, unlike their counterparts in industry, never really used the balance sheet, primarily because we've never viewed major league players, minor league players, draft picks, and playoff value within a single plane of tangible value (both present and future). Those who learn to do so effectively will gain a massive leg up in the information wars.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Adam Guttridge 2009-06-29T05:05:15+00:00 The manager bump http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/the-manager-bump/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/the-manager-bump/#When:14:56:15
Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Adam Guttridge 2009-06-26T14:56:15+00:00