It’s Tough to Be a Royals’ Fan

Or the fan of any of the small market team that hasn’t had success in a while.  It’s a steep hole to dig out of.

When I saw that the Royals had signed Yuniesky Betancourt for a second stint, my initial reaction was, “What are they thinking?!?  Haven’t they already seen enough of him to never make that mistake again?”

On further investigation, I realized that its actually not such a bad move for the Royals after all.  According to fangraphs, Betancourt’s performance was worth $3.7 million in 2010 and $2.3 million last season.

The Royals are reported to have signed Yuniesky for one year at $2 million with another $500,000 in performance bonuses.  That’s right in line with his recent past performance and really a bargain for a player who played regularly the last two seasons.

I realize that this is the kind of move bad small market teams feel they have to make.  They have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find the best available player they can get to sign for the very limited money they have to spend, particularly if they don’t have enough depth in the high minors to fill the hole internally.

The only hope for the Royals and their long-suffering fans is that all the great young talent they’ve been able to draft the last few seasons finally develops to its full potential at roughly the same time before they all escape via free agency and that fill-ins like Betancourt play just well enough to allow the team to win in spite of themselves.

With only two winning seasons in the last twenty years, even an 82-win season would be cause for celebration in K.C.  That’s reasonably doable in 2012, given their recent modest improvement in 2009 and 2010, even though Betancourt is unlikely to do much to make it happen.

Texas Rangers Place High Bid for Yu Darvish

The Rangers reportedly bid $51.7 million just for the right to negotiate a possible contract with Yu Darvish.  How much more will it take to actually get him signed?

Darvish made 500 million yen in 2011, which at present exchange rates is about $6.4 million.  mlbtraderumors.com has passed on rumors that it could take $70 to 75 million to bring him to the U.S.

Past signings of posted players suggests that a six year contract in the $54 to 60 million range is most likely.  That’s not a whole lot more per year than what he’s making now, but I have to think that at 500 million yen, Darvish is up against the de facto limit for any NPB team other than the Yomiuri Giants or the Hanshin Tigers.  His high salary is probably a big part of the reason the Nippon Ham Fighters posted him in the first place, aside from the enormous posting fee he commanded.

Also, Japanese teams rarely give players multi-year contracts, so I would think it would be hard for Darvish to turn down a $54 to 60 million long-term deal.

It’s a big time play for the Rangers — high risk and high reward, at least if they successfully sign Darvish. One thing I don’t like about the posting system, is that MLB teams don’t pay anything if they don’t sign the posted player to a contract.  I still kind of wonder whether the A’s didn’t place the winning bid on Hisashi Iwakuma last winter and then low-ball him in contract talks just to keep him away from their competitors.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Darvish is more promising at this moment than Diasuke Matsuzaka was when the Red Sox first committed a little over $103 million to bring Dice-K to Boston.

Matsuzaka shows both the risks and possible rewards.  He went 33-15 his first two seasons and has been battling arm problems the last three.  Fangraphs estimates his total value through the first five years of his six year deal at only $44.9 million.

Clearly, if fangraphs’ estimate is accurate, the Red Sox made a big mistake signing Dice-K.  However, if Matsuzaka’s arm had stayed healthy, the Red Sox likely would have received roughly what they paid for.

Like Matsuzaka, Darvish has pitched an awful lot of innings at a tender age in Japan.  Unlike Dice-K, Darvish has never had any significant injuries in his career to date (Matsuzaka had elbow problems in 2002).

Also, the Rangers have to like the fact that Darvish is much bigger than Matsuzaka. Fangraphs lists Matsuzaka as six feet even and 185 lbs.  NPB’s website lists Darvish as 6’5″ and 215 lbs.  That’s definitely a body-type scouts like to see in pitchers.

If Darvish comes to the U.S., I think he’ll dominate major league hitters for the first two seasons, like Hideo Nomo with better control.  After that, we’ll see how his arm holds up and what kind of adjustments American League hitters make.

Milwaukie Brewers Place High Bid for Norichika Aoki

The Brewers placed the high bid on Japanese outfielder Norichika Aoki, which was reported to be only $2.5 million.  This is a terrific move by the Brewers, at least at this price, even though very few people in the U.S. have any familiarity with Aoki.

I have long felt that Aoki would be a good bet for a major league team because of his outstanding ability to get on base.  I posted this study two and a half years ago (I’ll admit it needs updating), which suggests that on average Japanese hitters lose between 25 and 30 basis points on their on base percentages and a little over 90 basis points on their slugging percentages when they come from NPB to the major leagues.

What this means is that except for an NPB star with exceptional power like Hideki Matsui, Japanese hitters will not hit for power in the U.S.  On the other, Japanese hitters who are particularly good at getting on base, will continue to be good at getting on base in the U.S.

That is where Norichica Aoki comes in.  Even after a 2011 season way below his career norms, most likely due to the complete collapse of offense in NPB this past season, apparently due to the introduction of new baseballs, Aoki still has a career .402 OBP in NPB.  (Aoki’s .292 batting average and .358 OBP in 2011, were respectively good for 7th and 4th place in the Japan’s Central League out of 24 qualifying players.)

Aoki’s career NPB on-base percentage strongly suggests that we should reasonably predict about a .370 OBP from him in Milwaukee next year.  Given how well Aoki runs (164 career NPB stolen bases at a 76% success rate), he should be a better than average lead-off or second place hitter in the U.S.

The biggest knocks on Aoki are that he will be 30 next year, his career NPB .454 slugging percentage probably correlates to below .400 in MLB, and his outfield range and weak arm suggest that he’d be a better than average left-fielder in Milwaukee (he plays center field in Japan).

According to this website, Aoki made 330 million yen last season, which converts to about $4.24 million.  That makes me think the Brewers would have to give him at least $11 or 12 million over two years to convince him to come to the U.S.

That’s a fairly big commitment for an untested left-fielder with no power, although with Ryan Braun facing a 50 game suspension for alleged PED use and the Brewers recognizing the uncertainty that comes with Nyjer Morgan as the apparent every day centerfielder, bringing in Aoki makes a certain amount of sense.

Charlie Finley’s Designated Pinch Runners

The memory of Charlie Finley’s pinch runners popped into my head today, and I thought I’d write something about them.  Turns out, though, someone beat me to it.  Here’s a great post from Junk Stats, which really lays out Charlie O’s string of pinch running specialists from 1967 through 1978. I’ve still got my own comments to add, so here goes.

The most famed of Finley’s pinch runners was sprinter Herb Washington, because he wasn’t a baseball player.  He was a world class track star who, according to wikipedia, tied or broke the world’s record in the 50 and 60 yard dashes several times.

Washington only lasted a little over a year as the A’s’ designated pinch runner, because he wasn’t a baseball player.  There’s more to stealing and running the bases than simply being fast.  He got picked off base in the 9th inning of Game 2 of the 1974 World Series by Dodger relief ace Mike Marshall, and that was the beginning of the end of Washington’s baseball career.

How much Finley’s decision to sign Washington in the first place was simply for the publicity and how much was a true baseball decision is a matter for debate.  One thing is certain — Charlie O was really committed to the idea of pinch runners.

One thing that Washington’s career proved, however, is that baseball is better left to the professionals.  All the other pinch runners Finley’s A’s used were real professional ballplayers, even if not major league talents, and they were usually better as pinch runners than Washington was.

Finley’s first full-time pinch runner, Allen “The Panamanian Express” Lewis, had a career .282 minor league batting average.  However, he had no power and didn’t get on base unless he hit safely, so he had no chance of a major league career except for his wheels.

Larry Lintz, the A’s primary pinch runner in 1976 and part of 1977, was actually a player who was highly underrated in his day.  He couldn’t hit for average (MLB career .227) and had no power, but he had a career .336 OBP, which is great for a 2Bman who ran the way he did.

In his only season as a major league semi-regular with the Expos in 1974, Lintz hit a lousy .238 with no power at all, but he still scored 60 runs in only 388 plate appearances because he drew 44 walks and stole 50 bases in 57 attempts.  That kind of player’s value would be recognized today, at least by the money-ball teams.

It’s safe to assume that Herb Washington was probably the fastest player ever to play major league baseball, but Allen Lewis and Larry Lintz were more efficient base stealers by a fairly wide margin, as were most of the A’s other designated pinch runners.

One thing I noticed looking at this article by the same author as the Junk Stats piece above, is that Finley appears to have had at least one significant convert to his church of the designated pinch runner.  Chuck Tanner managed the A’s in 1976, and he obviously took the idea with him to Pittsburgh.

In 1978, the Pirates acquired former Oakland pinch runner Matt Alexander, who filled the same role for the Pirates for the next few seasons.  Tanner also used Alberto Luis exclusively as a pinch runner for a period in 1979.

It’s worth noting that keeping a player on the roster for use solely as a pinch runner doesn’t appear to have hurt the A’s or the Pirates at all.  The A’s won five consecutive division titles and three World Series during this period, and the Pirates won their last World Series in 1979.

That being said, it’s hard to imagine any team today devoting a roster spot to a player used exclusively as a pinch runner.  The 1970′s was an era of ten-man pitching staffs.  Twelve is the norm today.

Also, it’s hard to imagine why any team would really need to keep a player on their roster whose only value is as a pinch runner.  Professional baseball is full of players who are not major league hitters who can run the bases extremely well and play at least one defensive position better than a sweet-swinging regular.   It’s just too easy to find an inexpensive player who can do double duty as a pinch runner and late-inning defensive replacement.

Two recent Giants come to mind:  Darren Ford and Rajai Davis.  (In fairness to Rajai, he eventually developed into enough of a hitter to play regularly the last few seasons.)  I’m sure you can remember a couple from whatever team you root for.

Twins Trade Cuddyer for Willingham

Not exactly, but in practical effect.   On paper, it’s a good move for the Twins.

According to mlbtraderumors.com, the Twins will be giving Josh Willingham $21 million for three seasons, while the Rockies will be paying Michael Cuddyer $31.5 million over the same three seasons.  It seems fairly clear to me that Cuddyer isn’t worth $3.5 million per year than Willingham.

Both will be 33 next year, both have some power.  Cuddyer has more defensive value, particularly because he can play quite a few positions.  Fangraphs says Cuddyer was worth $14 million last year and $30.1 million over the last three, while Willingham was worth $9.4 million last year and $33 million over the last three.  That sounds like pretty much the same player.

Cuddyer obviously had some slightly greater value to the Twins, given the long history he had with the team.  It will be interesting to see what Twins fans have to say about the switch.

I expect there will be a certain amount of grumbling until the season actually starts.  If Willingham plays well and, more importantly, if the Twins play winning baseball, the fans will forget Michael Cuddyer right quick.  At the end of the day, fans mostly want to see a winning team.

The reports are that the Twins are actively trying to re-sign Jason Kubel, but now that they’ve thrown their lot in with Josh Willingham and Ryan Doumit, I don’t really see the point.  The Twins have plenty of good-hit-no-field players already, and they should be saving all the DH time they can for Joe Mauer anyway.

Arizona Diamondback Resign Cody Ransom

It was announced in the last day or so that the Diamondbacks resigned one of my favorite marginal major leaguers Cody Ransom.  It was a minor league deal (which makes sense since Cody is a classic 4-A player) probably calling for $500,000 to $600,000 per year for time spent in the majors and around $85,000 per year for time spent at AAA.

I like Cody because once upon a time he was Giants prospect.  Also, he has the dubious distinction of being the only position player I am aware of who has managed to play parts of nine different major league seasons without ever once getting 100 plate appearances in one year.

If anyone is a aware of any other position player who played in the majors nine or more years without ever reaching 100 plate appearances in a season, I’d love to hear about it.  The player I’m most reminded of is Charlie “Swede” Silvera, a San Francisco native who was Yogi Berra’s back-up at catcher for the Yankees from the late 1940′s until well into the 1950′s.  He played in ten major league seasons, and topped 100 plate appearances only in 1949, when he had came up to the dish with wood in his hands 149 times.

The Swede was a pretty good hitter, with a career .282 major league batting average and a .356 OBP.  However, he had no power at all, so as long as Yogi Berra was healthy enough to play, Silvera sat.

I’ve written about Cody Ransom before, at length here.  He is that rare player who learned how to hit around age 30.

When Cody was young and had the defensive range to play shortstop, he couldn’t hit.  When he finally learned how to hit, he no longer had the range to play SS.  This is one way 4-A players are made.

Cody hit .317 with a 1.034 OPS last year at AAA Reno in the Pacific Coast League.  Reno is a great, great place to hit, but 27 HRs in 372 ABs at the AAA level is still impressive.  However, he hit a lousy .152 with a .546 in 37 late season plate appearances with the D-Backs.

Cody turns 36 this coming February, so I think it’s better than even money we’ll never see him in the majors again, even for his annual cup of coffee.  Still, anything is possible, and now that the D-Backs have rewarded him for his terrific 2011 campaign with one more season at AAA, Cody is only one or two injuries and a hot streak away from evening things up with Charlie Silvera.

Ryan Braun Tests Positive For Steroids

Well, it’s awfully disappointing that one of the league’s brightest young stars has tested positive for steroids.  At least, it shows that the testing regime really works, and there’s no one who won’t be held accountable if they test positive.

According to ESPN, Ryan had a 4 to 1 or higher ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone, and a further test on the same sample showed that the extra testosterone was artificial.  Ryan requested a second test, which came up negative, but the second test was probably taken some weeks after the first one.

Ryan isn’t going to be railroaded.  He has already filed to challenge the positive test, which will apparently be decided by an arbitrator.

It’s a tough blow for the Brewers and their fans, but I can’t say I’m entirely surprised.  Not that I ever suspected Braun in particular, but I have always assumed that players are still taking substances they shouldn’t be, only in smaller quantities and with an eye to outsmarting the testing regime in place.  Any little edge can mean millions of dollars at this level, and in Braun’s case, it may have helped him win his recently awarded MVP, assuming that he did, in fact, cheat.

My suspicion is that the players now most likely to test positive for steroids are the marginal major leaguers and the biggest stars.  Obviously, the guys on the cusp of having major league careers and making the real money have a big incentive to do anything it takes to get an edge.

Among the top players, the egos are big, and the incentive to put up the biggest numbers is probably as much about being recognized as the best and getting the most glory, as it’s about making the extra millions.

For what it’s worth, Ryan Braun doesn’t have a ‘roids body, although he’s always had a noticeably thick neck, which to me always seemed like what you’d see in a football player rather than a baseball player.  Of course, some of the guys who test positive really look the part, and others don’t.

Now for some completely unrelated topics — my most devoted reader has asked me what I think of the Angels signing Albert Pujols and the Giants trading for Angel Pagan from the Mets.

The Angels obviously gave Pujols too much money over too many years, but the signing makes a certain amount of sense as far as the Angels are concerned.  They are a big market team that hasn’t been to the World Series since they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat against the Giants in 2002 (Ha! Ha! Ha! – it doesn’t hurt anymore thanks to 2010).  Prince Albert obviously gives them a better chance of doing so in the next five years.

I’m interested to see how Pujols adjusts to American League ball.  He’s great, but his career is almost certainly on a downward trajectory, and the AL is the better of the two leagues.

My guess is that Albert tops his 2011 .906 OPS four or five times over the ten years of the contract, but that he tops 1.000 only one more time.  To me, Pujols is the modern day Jimmie Foxx, and the Beast did not age well.  At least, Pujols isn’t a heavy drinker.  [I was tempted to end the post here, because the 534 word count matched Foxx's career homerun total.]

I just can’t get excited about the Angel Pagan trade.  Pagan is a better bet than Andres Torres in 2012, and even more so in the year or two afterward before he becomes a free agent, mainly because Pagan is younger.  Otherwise, they look pretty similar.

The way I see it, the Giants gave up a little more than they got in order to improve in the outfield.  Ramon Ramirez was really very good last year, and I think there’s a good chance he’ll end up as the Mets’ top set-up man in 2012.

I wonder if it was tough for the Mets to give up a Puerto Rican starter in Pagan.  There are a lot of Puerto Ricans in New York, so Pagan must have had some box office appeal.

There was a time when teams definitely took ethnicity into account.  Italian stars playing for the Yankees, the Giants looking for a Jewish star for years, the New York teams being the first to integrate.  Nowadays, it probably comes down a lot more to simply winning and finding the players who can help a team win.

Andres Torres is also from Puerto Rico, and although I expect him to be role player for the Mets in 2012, I also expect the New York fans will like him.  He was one of my favorite players during his time as a Giant.  I liked the story of his late-found success, and he was just a class act and real professional.  That kind of player is popular wherever he goes.

A’s Didn’t Get Enough for Trevor Cahill

The A’s traded Trevor Cahill and Craig Breslow to the Diamondbacks today, and I’m underwhelmed by what they got in return.

I’m not tremendously confident in Cahill’s future, because he doesn’t miss enough bats.  In other words, his ratios don’t suggest he’s going to develop into a great pitcher.

That being said, he is not yet 24 years old and already has 96 major league starts under his belt.  His ERA jumped greatly in 2011 compared to 2010, but he also struck out a lot more hitters than he did in either of his first two seasons.

One thing is certain — Cahill is a proven major league starter who’s still under control for three more seasons and is young enough he’s almost certain to get better before he gets worse.  You have to get some pretty good prospects in exchange for that.

I don’t see that the A’s did.  Breslow for Ryan Cook looks like an even swap between a team that’s trying to win their division again in 2012 and a team that’s still trying to develop into a contender.

Cook had a fine year split between AA and AAA in 2011, but he’s 25 next season and hasn’t yet proven he’s a major league pitcher.  Breslow slipped a little last year, but he still looks like a safe bet as a left-handed short man for a team looking to contend in 2012.

In other words, the trade was basically Cahill for Jarrod Parker and Collin Cowgill.  Both Parker and Cowgill come with big asterisks.

Parker is a former 1st round pick, and he’s still only 23 this coming season.  However, he blew his elbow tendon out in 2009 and missed all of 2010 while recovering from Tommy John surgery.  He had a solid season at AA Mobile in 2011, but it’s still uncertain if he’s the same guy he was before he blew out his pitching elbow.

I know some guys come all the way back from Tommy John surgery nowadays, but I’d still rather get a young pitcher who’s never blown out his elbow, at least if I’m going to give up one of my rotation anchors in return.

Collin Cowgill had a fine year at AAA Reno, batting .354 with a .984 OPS, but Reno is really a great place to hit. Cowgill was already 25 last season and didn’t do much in 100 plate appearances with the D’Backs.  In his previous two seasons at A+ and AA, he posted OPS numbers of .819 and .825.  To me that sounds like a bench player at the major league level or a perennial 4-A player.

In sum, it seems like the A’s should have gotten one more prospect in the deal, and it doesn’t strike me as the kind of deal I’d expect Billy Beane to make.  It kind of leaves me wondering if there’s something the A’s know that the D’Backs don’t.

Trevor Cahill pitched a lot better in the first half of 2011 than he did in the second half.  He’s thrown a lot of innings at a young age, and he doesn’t strike a lot of people out. The A’s may think he’s only a season or two away from a major arm injury.

Softbank Hawks Sign Wily Mo Pena for $3.6 Million

I’ve been waiting around the last couple of days to write about this rumored signing, until I could get something close to confirmation as to what the contract terms actually are.  According to NPB Tracker (Patrick Newman provides a link to a website in Japanese), Wily Mo Pena’s two year deal with the Softbank Hawks is for 280 million yen, which translates at today’s rates as a hair under $3.6 million.

That’s quite a bit less than the $5 million plus incentives that has been reported elsewhere, but much more in line with what Japanese teams have been willing to pay in the past to foreign players who haven’t yet proven their ability to play in NPB.  In fact, if the 280 million yen is guaranteed (and I suspect it is for the reasons I’ll state below), then it’s a huge deal by NPB standards for an unproven foreign player.

I assume the two year deal is guaranteed, at the very least for the first year, because there is just no reason for a player to agree to a non-guaranteed multi-year deal.  If the contract isn’t guaranteed (or comes with a big signing bonus like most long-term NFL deals) and player bombs, the teams cuts him and the player gets nothing more than he’d have gotten from a one-year deal.  If the player is great, he’s locked himself into a second year when he might have been able to command more if he could still negotiate.

By MLB standards, $3.6 million isn’t much, but most things are relative, and in the NPB it’s big money, and more money, in fact, than the Hawks should have guaranteed given their likely other foreign player options.  Meanwhile, it’s a great deal for Wily Mo, since I don’t see him as a full-time major league player in 2012.  In the U.S., he’d probably have made $70,000 to $90,000 pro rated for his time at AAA (likely more than half of the 2012 season) and $500,000 to $700,000 pro rated for this time in the Show.

Wily Mo is the kind of player the Japanese teams love, because he has substantial major league experience and had a big year in AAA ball last season.  However, I’m just not convinced he’s going to be all that good in 2012.

Wily Mo hit like a fool in the Pacific Coast League this past season, batting .358 with an insane 1.152 OPS over 332 plate appearances.  However, he put up most of these numbers playing his home games in Reno, which looks like an extreme hitters’ park if ever there was one.

Three Reno Aces were among the PCL’s top seven batters in OPS in 2011 (Cody Ransom, Ryan Langerhans and Colin Cowgill — Wily Mo didn’t have enough plate appearances to qualify).  Here’s what these four did in limited playing time in the majors during 2011:

Ransome hit .152 with a .546 OPS in 37 plate appearances for the Diamondbacks.

Langerhans hit .173 with a .664 OPS in 64 plate appearances for the Mariners.

Cowgill hit .239 with a .604 OPS in 100 plate appearances for the Diamondbacks.

Wily Mo Pena hit .204 with a .666 OPS in 120 plate appearances, roughly split between the D’Backs and the M’s.

O.K., we’re talking small sample sizes, but the numbers are uniformly terrible.  The Reno Aces are a farm club for the Arizona Diamondbacks, who still play in a hitters’ park (the D’backs and their opponents scored 744 runs at Chase Field in 2011, and 651 runs in other ballparks).

In other words, Wily Mo’s big year at Reno doesn’t look nearly as impressive when you peal back the onion a bit.

A couple of years ago, I might have been a bigger fan of this signing, but after Dan Johnson struggled at Yokahoma in 2009, I’ve become more sensitive to the fact that it’s very difficult to predict which players will blossom (i.e., quickly make the adjustments) in NPB and which ones will wash out. [Johnson hit .215 in his lone Japanese season, a year after being the best hitter in the AAA International League and having substantial prior MLB experience.  Another NPB team should have given him a chance, given his .791 OPS that year, but no team was willing to consider it in light of his nearly $1 million 2009 salary.]

Numerous commentators have noted that Wily Mo has trouble with breaking balls and that NPB pitchers throw more breaking balls than MLB pitchers do.  That doesn’t sound good to me.  My understanding is that the NPB strikezone is bigger than the MLB strikezone (home plate is wider in Japan), and the big difference between NPB pitchers and MLB pitchers is more a matter of the number of pitchers who can hump it up there in the mid- to upper 90′s than command.

Wily Mo walked more than he ever has in the past at AAA this past season, but it was almost certainly because he was being pitched around in that league.  In the majors he walked five times and struck out 39 times in 120 plate appearances, which is much more in keeping with Wily Mo’s past performance.

If another Japanese team invests $900,000 for one year in Brian LaHair, I think they’ll get the same chance for success in 2012 as the Softbank Hawks will get from Pena at a much higher price.  LaHair led the PCL with 38 HRs and a 1.070 OPS playing for the Iowa Cubs in 2011, and he’s a year younger (29 next season) than Pena.

LaHair also walks more than Pena, and he had put up much better major league numbers last year in limited playing time (he hit .288 with an .885 OPS in 69 plate appearances for the MLB Cubs).  What he doesn’t have is extensive major league playing experience.  LaHair has 219 career MLB plate appearances to Wily Mo’s 1845.

LaHair’s career major league OPS is .730 compared to Wily Mo’s .748 in all that extra playing time.  However, LaHair’s career minor league OPS is .865 compared to Wily Mo’s .826.

The thing that strikes me most in LaHair’s favor is that in the last three years, his hitting has improved dramatically, particularly his power numbers, which is what you would expect from a player entering the second half of his twenties.  Wily Mo, on the other hand, looked like his professional career was headed for palookaville until a stint in the Independent A Atlantic League in 2010 got him into AAA ball.

Getting back to Wily Mo, the best thing about the two year commitment the Hawks have apparently made is that it will at least give him two seasons to adjust to Japanese baseball.  Unlike most foreign players, if he stinks or is merely mediocre in 2012, he’ll get to come back in 2013 and show if he learned anything from the first year’s experience.  That can only be a good thing for a player with his raw talent.