25 Jan. 2009: Coming off a solid season in which he did not see much playing time in the second half, Orlando Hudson remained unsigned despite several teams needing help at second base, where he has established himself as a frontline player.
25 Jan. 2010: Second verse, same as the first.
Hudson’s extended availability after the 2008 season made a fair amount of sense. His extended absence in the second half was due to a dislocated wrist that required surgery, ending his season in early August. Even missing almost two months, Hudson was still a type-A free agent, and was offered arbitration by Arizona, giving teams another reason to be wary.
Indeed, Hudson wouldn’t sign with the Dodgers until 20 February, the day many pitchers and catchers reported.
This time around, Hudson’s availability is a little bit of a mystery. He was dinged up at the end of the season, but losing his playing time to Ronnie Belliard was based on something besides health and performance. Sure, Belliard was hot at the end of the year, but Hudson was a top-3 second baseman in 2009 and yet found himself riding pine.
The Dodgers didn’t handcuff Hudson the way the Diamondbacks did after the 2008 season, they didn’t offer him arbitration, making him a much more attractive target to thrifty teams that are opposed to giving up first-round picks.
At 5.4 wins above replacement player, Hudson was the 33rd most valuable player in baseball last year, equal to Joe Nathan, and more valuable than CC Sabathia, Shin-Soo Choo, Justin Verlander, or Aaron Hill. While he is more than respectable at the plate (9th highest VORP among second baseman with an above average EqA), Hudson’s value derives greatly from his skill afield.
Normally, my go-to defensive stat is Ultimate Zone Rating or UZR, and Hudson’s -3.3 runs below average in 2009 isn’t terrible, but I think it undervalues his skill. Clay Davenport’s Fielding Runs Above Average ranks him as 16 runs above average at second base*, which seems about right. He’s a plus defender, who doesn’t leave the bat at home. His injured groin almost certainly limited his lateral movement later in the season, which may have helped to depress his UZR, but something that isn’t likely to hang on into 2010.
*Necessary note: despite both being called “runs” the scale for UZR and FRAA is very different, so it isn’t that there’s a nearly 20 run discrepancy between the two, just that one ranks him as above average and the other slightly below. It looks like a big difference, but it’s a little bit of an optical illusion.
A career .282/.348/.431 hitter, Hudson is a prototypical top of the order hitter. He draws walks at an above average rate, makes good contact, and while he isn’t a power hitter by any definition, he’s not Jason Tyner or Adam Everett.
Which brings us to the Twins’ needs, namely, a slick-fielding second baseman and a high-OBP hitter to hit ahead of Mauer/Morneau/Kubel/Cuddyer. If you haven’t connected these dots yet, well, I can’t much help you.
If you believe that those really are the Twins’ needs (which, to a large extent, they are), then you’ve got to see Hudson as the answer. He’s a switch hitter, meaning he won’t contribute to the lefty block at the top of the order, and he’s a perfect hitter behind Span and ahead of Mauer.
The sticking point here, as it so often is, is cash monies (as the kids say). Lest ye tread the well-trodden path of “BLARG the Twins are too cheap to sign anyone!” it seems pertinent to look at the Twins’ finances at this point in the offseason. According to Joe C’s estimates at the Star Tribune, the Twins have sunk some $90 million into the payroll this year, which would raise them from 23rd to 14th in the payroll rankings (assuming no other team had spent money this offseason, the exact rankings won’t be known for weeks). Irrespective of rank, the Twins payroll is $23 million higher than last year, and that’s before Mauer’s new contract is announced.
Hudson’s contract requests are said to be at 1-year, $9 million, which would make him the fifth highest-paid Twin if he were to get it. Now, with most free agents, this time of year is when you see their prices drop (Mark DeRosa this year, Joe Crede last year, it’s a grand tradition), but O-Hud seems locked into his $9 million demands.
The Nationals, the other team mentioned in connection with O-Dawg, seem to have turned their eyes elsewhere after finding Hudson to be more or less intransigent. In an email, Baseball Prospectus’ John Perotto noted that Hudson was really unhappy with the way last offseason went, the way he was treated by Joe Torre, and as such, was determined to get paid like he thought he deserved to be paid.
Money is value, Hudson wants to be valued, so pay the man his money. I get that. It does make me wonder if he’d accept a multiyear deal for a lower average annual value. The Twins don’t have anyone waiting in the wings at second or short, so if they believe Hudson can be productive into his age 33-34 seasons, there’s little reason not to save the money on the front end and sign him to a 3/21 deal instead of the 1/9 he’s reported to be seeking. Granted, it puts the Twins on the hook for more money in an absolute sense, and Hudson hasn’t been the healthiest of players, but it’s an option worth exploring if the Twins are willing to commit $6-7 million to a player, but not the full $9 million Hudson is seeking.
The fact is that the Twins won’t pay $9 million for Hudson. That doesn’t mean that he won’t get $9 million from someone, or that the Twins won’t be the team that ends up signing him for less, but right now there’s just no common ground. If I had to guess, I believe that Hudson’s price will drop eventually, perhaps even soon. Everyone wants to be paid what they believe themselves to be worth, but when push comes to shove, a job is a job.
The two teams most commonly connected to Hudson thus far are the Twins and the Nats, both of whom seem to be waiting for Hudson’s price to fall. I can’t see either deciding at this point that they are just going to sign him—damn the cost—when they’ve waited this long to make a move.
As in the past, this is a question of dollars and cents. The Twins have already upgraded the infield, and may choose to target their dwindling fund elsewhere, but they’ve already shown a willingness to spend $5 million (the amount they offered Jarrod Washburn). If they can spend $2 million more, and if Hudson is willing to drop his price by that same amount, I really think that a deal will get done. What remains to be seen is if either of those things will happen.
Just a couple quick notes from the action of the last few days.
First, I do apologize for the lack of content on my part. The Twins haven’t been particularly active and I have been. Grad School is…a mental investment I may or may not have been ready to make. It knocks you on your can pretty good if you aren’t ready for it, but just like any good fighter, the important thing is getting back up. But yeah, the entire class got a cumulative score of 0 on the first assignment; welcome to my last two weeks.
I did recently write a piece for Baseball Prospectus which I am proud of. Getting to put my name in the author logs with Christina Kahrl, Will Carroll, Kevin Goldstein, Joe Sheehan, Keith Law, Nate Silver, and the rest of BP’s incredible alumni was a goal I’ve had for a long time, and well worth the wait. It was a piece of free content so please go check it out!
Second, and perhaps more importantly, there was news regarding a third baseman today, which means it affected the Twins, if only peripherally.
Kevin Kouzmanoff, profiled here earlier, was traded to the A’s along with a prospect for Scott Hairston and Aaron Cunningham. I love this deal for the A’s, since neither of these two were going to be part of any long term plan, and Kouzmanoff is a pretty decent addition. The fact that Hairston was traded from the Padres to the A’s last season makes this deal kind of strange, but all-in-all, I like it fine for both sides.
Needless to say, this kicked up a fair amount of consternation among the Twins’ faithful on Twitter, and presumably also in real life. I can understand that. Kouz is better than anyone the Twins are likely to trot out at third at this point, and neither Hairston nor Cunningham represents a huge investment on the A’s part.
That said, they overpaid, which means the Twins would have had to do the same.
Hairston was a productive regular last season, worth 2.3 wins (2.6 coming while he was in San Diego, -0.3 while he was in Oakland) and while Cunningham is looking more and more like a AAAA player, he’s just going into his age 24 season, meaning he could turn a corner and become productive in his own right.
The Twins had offered Glen Perkins alone and the Padres had turned them down, asking for more than just the left-hander, and now we can see why. Perkins wasn’t great last year, he was injured, and he became a headache to the team by filing a grievance over service time issues. Even if you decide that he and Hairston are about equal, which they aren’t, the Twins don’t really have a Cunningham ready to go. That second player would have ended up being someone like Rene Tosoni or someone of that nature—a high teens, low 20s prospect reasonably close to the majors.
I get that fans want to see the team add someone at third, but the outcry over a Perkins/Tosoni-for-Kouzmanoff deal would have been much louder than it is with Kouz now off the table, and rightly so. As I said back in December, “the Padres want Perkins AND, with the name following the ‘and’ unknown as of yet. Who the second player ends up being will strongly influence how this perspective deal is interpreted.” Now that we know generally who that second player would be, I can say with confidence that I am glad the Twins’ brass passed on this deal. So don’t be fooled by any handwringing you see, this is ultimately a good thing for the Twins.
On the second base side of things, there are still good options to pursue. Orlando Hudson wants Adrian Beltre money (1 year, $9 million), but the only team who has been connected to him at that mark is the Nationals. The Nats are quietly not going to be awful next year, but I still can’t see them adding Hudson at that price, not with Christian Guzman still there and Ian Desmond ready to claim the SS position.
John Perotto, a man of many very good sources, said in a chat on baseballprospectus.com that he believes the Twins are in on Hudson, but are waiting for his price to drop. Save your complaints on the Twins’ tightwad ways, there’s no way Hudson is worth the same amount as Beltre, making this a situation like Joe Crede last season: a desire to do something is no excuse for doing something dumb, like overpaying for talent.
The Twins waited on Crede and got their man without getting locked into some insane Boras-induced contract. If the Nats want to fork over $9 million, more power to them, but I doubt they will and once Hudson’s expectations drop, expect the Twins to be there.
Recall that the Twins offered Jarrod Washburn $5 million not long ago, so the money is there to be spent. I firmly believe that if Hudson wants to come to Minneapolis, he will. The money won’t kill a deal unless the Twins get grossly outbid by the Nats or some other mystery team.
Hudson said he wanted to sign with a team soon, according to the Nationals’ website, but didn’t give a clue to who or when. Still, I don’t think he’ll let himself be teamless when camps open like he was last year, meaning he’ll probably sign within the next two weeks.
Felipe Lopez remains available as well, so the Twins certainly have a few options out there yet even if Hudson doesn’t work out.
According to reports by FoxSports.com’s John Paul Morosi, the Twins are still looking for a middle infielder, which is hardly surprising considering just one member of Game 163’s infield (Michael Cuddyer, Nick Punto, Orlando Cabrera, and Matt Tolbert) is likely to be in the starting infield next season. Sure, their projected 2010 infield (Justin Morneau, Alexi Casilla, J.J. Hardy, and Punto) is better in some places, but it’s weaker in others and not much better overall as a result.
What was surprising about Morosi’s report is that the Twins are also in the market for a fifth starter. I, like many writers, felt like the signing of Carl Pavano would more or less take the Twins out of the running for another arm. After all, the Twins have the top four set and a number of arms waiting to take the fifth spot.
It seems unlikely that Glen Perkins will return to the rotation after his well chronicled falling out with the team over his penchant for hiding injuries, then pitching terribly, and blaming the previously undisclosed injury for his abhorrent performance. If he’s even with the organization when camps break in a little over 90 days, I’ll be surprised.
Brian Duensing pitched extremely well down the stretch, far better than anyone thought he would. In his eight starts from August 22 to the end of the season, he went 5-1 with a 2.64 ERA and a WHIP of 1.3 in 47.2 innings. He struck out 31 and induced a ton of groundballs, which help him pitch around the batters he did allow to reach.
Anthony Swarzak was a reasonably well thought-of prospect, and he showed that promise on occasion, but his 2009 was by and large a disappointing effort. His fastball, change, and curveball all ranked as below average pitches, with his curve nearly five runs below average. He could slot in as a fifth starter if the Twins needed him to, and for many teams he’d fill that role decently, but he’s no better than the third best option for the fifth slot.
Jeff Manship made five starts at the end of the season, none bigger than his first—a five inning, one-run effort against the White Sox on September 1. While he may make a few appearances in spring training, it’s unlikely that he’ll break camp with the team.
Four arms loosely breaking down into two decent options and two prospects not yet ready. If these were the Twins’ options, a veteran arm might not be a bad idea (though as noted earlier, Jarrod Washburn is not an option worth pursuing). But there’s another player in this mix, one that has caused fans and prognosticators alike more headaches in the last two seasons than nearly any other player in baseball. The Twins other fifth starter option is none other than Capt. E. Nigma himself: Francisco Liriano.
Starting back in 2006 does more harm than good at this point. Liriano will never be that pitcher again. The question is if he can even be the pitcher who was nearly a win above replacement in 2008 despite throwing just 76 big-league innings.
His return from Tommy John surgery in 2008 was a study in patience as he began the year poorly, improved after being sent down to AAA, then went 6-1 with a 2.74 ERA and a 1.18 WHIP over 65.2 innings. His nearly 3-1 K/BB ratio was augmented by a low HR rate and a good GB/FB ratio. There’s good reason why the 2009 Baseball Prospectus Annual listed him as likely to be the ace of the staff in the coming season.
His 2009 was a regression par excellence; disappointing to say the least. He gave up three runs or more as many times in April alone as he did in his final 11 starts of 2008. Cold weather struggles are nothing new for Liriano, so hope that he’d bounce back was far from misplaced, and as May began, it looked like he might be waking up from a winter’s nap that had simply lasted too long. It didn’t take, however, as continued to struggle to string two good starts together. But that’s the key: from the press he received, you’d think Liriano was consistently bad, when in fact his problem was consistency. He had a number of very good starts—some amongst the best the Twins got all season, but he also gave them two of their ten worst starts (for what it’s worth, Glen Perkins was responsible for both the worst and second-worst start the Twins received all year, as well as another in the bottom 10).
It’s not hard to see what happened to Liriano that caused him to falter so badly: his fastball, which has never been his best pitch, fell from 3.6 runs below average to a shockingly bad 25.6 runs below average despite rising in velocity from an average of 90.9 MPH in 2008 to 91.7 in 2009. Not only did the pitch get worse, he threw it more often, making an already bad situation even worse.
Still, even with the limits on his slider placed in order to keep his arm healthy, Liriano has some of the best stuff of any of the potential starters on the staff. His slider is still an above average offering, especially since he’s eliminated the “bad slider” that he was using to set up his good one. His change, too, is a solid offering, giving him two plus secondary pitches essentially without a foundation. If he can get his fastball back to even the level it was at in 2008 (bad, but closer to average), his two secondary offerings will play that much better, and he should resume his previous effectiveness.
This all brings us to his most recent outings. In his first four starts for Escogido in the Dominican Winter League leave him with a line of 16.2 IP, 11 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 20 K, a 1.08 ERA, a 0.84 WHIP, and especially encouraging are the 20/3 K/BB ratio and the 12.4 K/9. A grain of salt would be good when reading these numbers, as the DWL includes players at every level of the minors, as well as the majors. He’s induced 18 swinging strikeouts to just two looking, and while hard PFX data isn’t readily available, it seems fair to assume that his fastball isn’t getting hammered and that his slider has plenty of bite.
Counting on Liriano to be the ace of the staff is foolish, but they don’t need an ace—Scott Baker will be much better next year after an already decent 2009. Counting on him to be an innings-eater is foolish, but they don’t need an innings-eater—Carl Pavano, Nick Blackburn, and Baker all threw 200 innings. What they are looking for is a fifth starter in the truest sense of the term, someone who can take the ball every fifth day and give the team a chance to win. Liriano can be so much more than that if he reestablishes his foundation such that the Twins don’t have to worry about him giving them a two-inning stinker.
The Twins would be foolish to give up on Liriano at this point, he’s just 26 and has electric stuff when it’s on. Worst case scenario, he struggles again and the Twins go to Duensing or Swarzak; all that’s lost is time and maybe a game or two early in the season. The more likely scenario is that Liriano finds some comfort with his changeup, reestablishes his fastball, and continues to utilize a top-flight slider to post a much better 2010 than his 2009. He’ll never regain 2006’s majesty, but even a return to 2008’s performance will make the Twins a much better team than adding a Jarrod Washburn, Doug Davis, or most any other free agent arm within the Twins’ price range.
Even though Chone Figgins, Placido Polanco, and Pedro Feliz have been signed to play third base, the market is far from depleted. Free Agents like from Adrian Beltre to Troy Glaus are still teamless, which would be more surprising but for last year’s Type-A debacle where players like Orlando Hudson and Juan Cruz remained on the market long after the winter meetings.
This year, John Lackey is probably the biggest name to be signed so far, but Matt Holliday and Jason Bay remain in the aether, and even a top trade target like Dan Uggla can be had for the right price. Teams are simply willing to wait longer and see how the market develops rather than risk paying last year’s prices for an early shot at players (call it Raul Ibanez Syndrome).
The Twins are pioneers for this way of thinking, frequently signing players late in the offseason, with Joe Crede being the perfect example. Rather than bid against themselves, the Twins waited until Scott Boras could no longer pretend there was competing interest in his client, and the Twins were able to sign the player they wanted to a contract that was fair for both parties.
What should be somewhat surprising is that with a wide number of players available, some to sign and some to be acquired via trade, is that the Twins are already looking at option L on their offseason plan.
It isn’t too hard to see how the Twins got here: Adrian Beltre is likely to be too expensive, Mark DeRosa’s contract demands (3-years, 27 Million) are out of control given his age, the Marlins’ demands for Dan Uggla are ridiculous, so on and so forth ad infinitum. At the end of the day, we are where we are: Kevin Kouzmanoff.
There’s a lot of ground to cover with Kouz. His career OPS+ of 103 tells a lot about him, especially since it’s composed of a little over three years: one above average (110), a smattering below average (77 in 61 PAs with Cleveland), and two years of dead-on avereage (100). That’s a fair assessment of Kouzmanoff’s offensive contributions, a career .261/.308/.435 hitter isn’t bad at all—he shouldn’t be your team’s best player, but if he’s your worst, you’ve got a solid team.
And this is where the waters begin to murky. Proponents of Kouzmanoff will gleefully point out that he has accumulated that line—solid but unspectacular—in a park so pitcher friendly it’s the architectural equivalent of a home plate umpire with a five foot wide strike zone. And it’s true, Kouzmanoff’s career home/road split is non-trivial: .236/.287/.388 with 25 HR at Pecto compared to .284/.328/.477 with 37 HR elsewhere. 2009 saw the gulf widen to .220/.280/.382 and .287/.323/.455. This is all to say that Kouz looks like a much better hitter, indeed a good one, when he was anywhere but San Diego. And if there’s one thing I’m sure of in this crazy world, it’s that Minneapolis is not San Deigo.
So the Twins would be getting the road warrior who just needs a real ballpark to play in to become a star, right? Not quite. Using Baseball Reference’s Neutralized Batting tool, we can see exactly how Kouz would have looked in the Dome over his career and last season in particular. His career line bumps up to .271/.319/.449, while his 2009 goes to .261/.308/.426; it’s not a perfect system, but that’s a pretty good reference point, and it draws into perfect relief my complaint with Kouzmanoff: he never walks. Ever.
You may think this is hyperbole, but look at is this way: Kouzmanoff strikes out nearly four times more than he walks (K/BB of 4.03) whereas the average major league strikes out just twice for every walk drawn (K/BB of 2.02). His strikeout numbers are just about average, so the discrepancy comes from an incredibly low walk total. He jogged to first in just 4.7% of his PAs, again, well below the league average of 8.9%.
Consider for a moment Delmon Young, whose inability to let four consecutive bad pitches pass him by is legendary, posted a 2009 line of .284/.308/.425, disarmingly similar to Kouz’s projected line. Sure, Kouz would have walked a little more, but in the end a .308 OBP is what it is. Only 14 players who qualified for the batting title posted an OBP lower than .308; it is a very bad on-base percentage.
Bringing in Kouzmanoff isn’t exactly like adding another Young to the lineup, Kouz’s defense is above average, so he brings that to the table. His UZR over the last two seasons, 2.7 and 7.5, has been just fine, and indications are that he’s even improving at the position. He’s better in every way offensively than Joe Crede was, but doesn’t quite play defense at that level. He was worth 2.5 wins last season to Crede’s 1, so he’s an upgrade, but given that Crede missed 71 games, that’s not a difficult feat to accomplish.
But despite all these reasons, this rumor passes the smell test—in no way do I see this being farfetched or impossible. Why? Kouzmanoff is cheap in all the right ways. He’s a value-add, a guy who, as I noted above, is an asset to the team, but he’s only in his first year of arbitration, meaning he’d be with the team for at least three years at below market value. Since he is such an average player, his arb award wouldn’t be too much to handle either. Better still, the Padres are willing to accept Glen Perkins as part of a package for Kouz, meaning one less headache/arb case for the team to worry about.
Had that been the deal, Perkins for Kouz, I’d be all over it. That’s a nothing for something swap, it doesn’t matter if the something is your ideal piece, it was free. However, the Padres want Perkins AND, with the name following the ‘and’ unknown as of yet. Who the second player ends up being will strongly influence how this perspective deal is interpreted.
Let’s, for a moment, say that J.J. Hardy regains a reasonably high OBP, perhaps slightly better than his career .323 line, in the .340 range he was in, in 2008. The Twins then need a player to break up the lefties in their lineup, play good defense, and hit 6/7 in the order. Kouzmanoff makes perfect sense in this scenario as he does all of these things at a reasonable price.
However, since it’s unlikely that Hardy will hit that career high mark in the year in which he hops to the more difficult league, Kouzmanoff simply doesn’t fit the way the Twins top target should. If, at the end of the day, the market is laid bare, then perhaps he’ll make more sense as a secondary option or if the Pads agree to a deal involving Perkins and little else. However, as the market is currently well stocked with better options—prices yet unknown—and the Fathers don’t look desperate enough to move Kouz for such a low price. We can revisit this idea in a month or so if need be, but for the time being, the Twins should be looking elsewhere.
(Ed. note: According to reports from various sources, Pavano is almost certain to accept arbitration, and the Brewers are pursuing Randy Wolf.)
The Winter Meetings kicked off this morning, and while no blockbusters have been reported as of yet, the buzz has been quite good regarding players like Curtis Granderson, Brad Penny, Milton Bradley, and even Edwin Jackson. The Twins are traditionally lesser players this time of year, 2007 excepted, but that hardly dampens the fun of watching deals get made and forecasting which teams will come out winners in the annual Great Trade Melee.
While they may not be generating much buzz, the Twins are eagerly waiting to hear from Carl Pavano as to whether or not he’ll accept their offer of arbitration. Reports are that Pavano would like to capitalize on last year’s strong finish by signing a two-year deal, but that teams, including the Twins, are more interested in a one-year pact. Pavano said on a number of occasions that he liked pitching for the Twins and liked the staff, so, if everything else is equal, he’ll likely come back to the Twins by accepting arbitration.
However, if he feels he can get that second year from another team, he’s likely to sign with them for the added financial security. While most of the reports now have him leaning toward accepting the Twins’ offer, I find it hard to believe that a team like the Brewers, so badly in need of pitching, wouldn’t take a chance on the second year and sign him if given the chance. He may have to wait until the market bottoms out for them to realize it, but Pavano is a solid option in what has become a very, very shallow market for pitching.
John Lackey is the cream of the crop, said to be a target of the Mets if the Angels can’t resign him, but below him is a precipitous drop off. Eric Bedard and Rich Harden are unbelievably talented pitchers, but both carry such substantial injury risks that they aren’t likely to get much in terms of money or years. Harden has the advantage of having had a fairly healthy 2009, so he’s probably the second best arm on the market. Bedard, Bill Bavasi’s grandest folly, hasn’t made 20 starts in a season since 2007 and made just 30 starts in 2008 and 2009 combined. One could add Ben Sheets to the list of talented-but-injured-aces, as he missed all of 2009 following surgery.
The Third Estate is comprised of veteran arms, third starter types: Justin Duchsherer, Doug Davis, Jose Contreras, and of course, Carl Pavano. Given the quality of those around him, it would be hard to believe anyone but the three pitchers above (Lackey, Sheets, Harden) would be a much more attractive option than Pavano would be. That doesn’t guarantee that he’ll get the deal he wants, but all it takes is one injury in camp and a team could be left scrambling to add a starter. The difference between 1-year, $5 Million and 2-years, $10 Million seems a lot smaller when you’re desperate.
All this is to say, if Pavano returns to play a season in Target Field, I suspect that it will be because he accepted arbitration, which I predicted he would from the get-go.
So, if Pavano returns, it is a good thing for the Twins?
In the sense that if they bring him in, it means that Harden goes off the board, I’d say no, but in any objective evaluation, the answer is probably yes.
Pavano’s one-year bargain with the Indians was largely a ploy to rebuild his value after a horrid stint in New York. Pavano made just 17 starts his first season in the Bronx and then just nine in the next two seasons combined. When he did pitch he was below average and that type of performance isn’t going to win you many fans in New York. His time in Cleveland was unspectacular as he went 9-8 in 21 starts with a 5.37 ERA and a 1.37 WHIP, and while he improved after being traded to the Twins (5-4 in 12 starts, 4.64, 1.37) he was still a bit below league average. His start against the Yankees in Game Three of the playoffs was one of his best of the season, and would have looked a whole lot better if he had been pulled at the end of the 6th when he was clearly gassed.
So why should the Twins be hoping that a reliever who was below average even when he was pitching better accepts their offer to return? Why would they want him back in the first place?
The proof is in the pudding, or the peripherals in this case.
Pavano’s QERA–a predictive stat based on strikeout, walk, and groundball rates, scaled to ERA–was under four and would have been the best on the Twins’ staff. His strand rate was 66.1% (h/t to Over The Baggy), three points below his career average and five points below league average. Combine that with a BABIP well over .300 and you have a lot of runners reaching, and a lot of runners scoring, that normally wouldn’t score. As both of those rates return to normal, Pavano’s ERA and RA will both drop back into normal rates. A decline in BABIP will also portend a drop in his WHIP, and that doesn’t even factor in improved defense behind him.
Pavano will slot in at the three or four spot in the rotation depending on how Nick Blackburn pitches, so even if he’s around league average, he’ll give the Twins much better production than they got out of either Glen Perkins or Francisco Liriano. I think there’s an excellent chance that he rates slightly above league average and finally earns the long-term deal he’s been hoping for in the 2010 offseason.
The announcements of players offered arbitration made Twins fans happy last weekend as three names being bandied about—Placido Polanco, Orlando Hudson, and Felipe Lopez were all set free by their respective teams. This was particularly important for Hudson and Polanco, since due to their Type-A status, they would have cost a first-round pick to sign. In the past, the Twins have been reticent to sign players and give up their pick, so this was indeed a prime development.
All in all, these decisions expanded the pool of players that might fit the Twins’ needs. Adrian Beltre, Marco Scutaro, Chone Figgins, Polanco, Lopez, and Hudson have all been named in connection with the Twins, and each of them makes a certain amount of sense given the team’s needs.
However, as soon as that pool open, it got significantly shallower. Scutaro, Figgins, and Polanco lasted less than a week before Boston, Seattle, and Philly snapped them up. While this may be seen as a bad thing for the Twins, it’s actually quite good. Of the three players signed, only Polanco was a serious target for the Twins, and, as many people have noted, his three-year deal will take him into his age-37 season. To say that by that point he’ll likely be in the decline phase of his career is a gross understatement.
Not only were the players signed not Twins targets, the teams that signed them were those notorious for disrupting the market for the other players. Had the Red Sox decided to pursue Orlando Hudson, for example, they could have offered more in terms of both money and years than the Twins were likely to offer, making signing him extremely difficult. With the Mariners, Phillies, and Sawx now sated, the Twins will be dueling teams more in the tax bracket for the services of the rest of their trade targets.
With a level playing field, the Twins now have a chance to go after the player the think will best help their team, which makes correctly identifying their weaknesses that much more critical. If you can have what you want, you’d better be sure of your choice.
As I noted previously, the Twins were a poor defensive team and a pretty adept offensive one. They were the fifth best offensive team in baseball in terms of runs scored per game, but average or worse depending on your choice of defensive metrics. While the addition of JJ Hardy will help, they could use another sure glove. Another consideration is the extremely poor performance the Twins got out of the #2 spot in their order. Orlando Cabrera’s .314 OBP ahead of Joe Mauer was a great improvement over what the Twins had gotten before his arrival, but still brought the team line up to just .262/.306/.394, and even that was inflated by Mauer’s 123 ABs at a .398/.451/.707 clip.
While J.J. Hardy could be slotted into the second spot, which would leave the Twins looking for someone to hit 6th or 7th, his .218/.281/.323 line last year would have been part of the problem, not a solution. His career line as a second hitter is certainly hopeful enough, .272/.322/.467, but there are serious concerns to be had about Hardy producing that line in a harder league, especially when he failed to do so last year.
This brings us to a player I feel is the best fit for the Twins: Felipe Lopez.
2009 was very, very kind to Lopez, as he had his best season as a professional. His 2005 season in Cincinnati was a little better offensively, but his defense was much better in 2009. Still, his .310/.383/.427 line was well above average, as evidenced by his OPS+ of 111 and his EqA of .286. His move away from Arizona, paradoxically, improved his offensive output as he hit much better in the second half, .301/.364/.412 vs. .320/.407/.448. Having that kind of player ahead of Joe Mauer would create a many more run scoring opportunities for the offense. So it’s an open-and-shut case, right? Lock him up!
Well, not quite.
Much like Adrian Beltre circa 2004, Lopez had an uncharacteristically good year just in time to hit the free agent market. His career line isn’t much to crow about:.269/.338/.400, better than Brendan Harris’, but not necessarily the line you want to add for 7-8 million a year, especially when you factor in a career strikeout percentage of nearly 19%. His defense, too, hasn’t been the stuff of legends. His career UZR at short (where he played from 2001-2007) is a reprehensible -42.3, he’s never posted a positive figure at the position in his career.
But the Twins aren’t buying his career, they’re buying his future, and while career numbers are useful for sniffing out one-year wonders, players can and do improve over time and Lopez is one of those players.
He broke into the bigs at age 21 with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2001, but didn’t play a full season until he was traded to the Reds in 2005. Since that point, he’s hit .280/.349/.407, which is close to the line he posted this season, and which makes it look much less like an aberration. If he posts that type of season ahead of Mauer and a healthy Justin Morneau, he’ll provide a very similar offensive boost to what Orlando Cabrera gave the Twins at the end of 2009.
But, if you’ve been tracking with me, you’ll notice that I’ve made two defensive notes so far. First, the Twins need to improve it, and second Lopez is bad at it. Only that’s not quite right. Lopez is bad at shortstop, true, but he no longer plays there, nor would the Twins want him to. Lopez was moved to second base for 1/3rd of his games in 2007, and was clearly much better there than he was at short. His full time debut was less inspiring in 2008, back to 5.3 runs below average, but he rebounded in 2009 to 7.8 runs above average. If his entire career had been played there, I’d be worried this was unusual, but as far as second base is concerned, he’s spent more time above average than below it. He was the fifth best defender at second base in 2009, while he may regress, I don’t think he’ll all of a sudden become a defensive ditch.
I understand the reasons for being wary of Lopez, but if he puts together a season like the one that seems within his grasp, 2009 won’t look like an aberration, and whoever signs him will get a tremendous return on what seems like it will be a fair investment.
The free-agent market officially opened last week, heralded in by a flurry of important signings that could truly change the game. Or a general malaise, one of the two, I forget which.
Anyone who studies market trends in baseball can tell you that a high volume of deals get done as the windows are are closing, not opening. Deals will get done between now and well into spring training as teams try to patch holes without creating new ones and without taking on an ungodly amount of salary. The same is true with the trade deadline; sure, players get moved early in the season, but the last week of July is lousy with players flying from one team to the other. Perhaps if the windows were smaller there would be more action. GMs bidding like floor traders, elbowing each other out of the way to talk to key agents, eventually a huge fight breaks out in the lobby of the Indianapolis Omni hotel with winning getting the right to sign Jason Bay for too much money.
As much as I’d like to see the Twins go after a pitcher next, the rumblings I’ve heard are that they are still interested in the infield. I certainly can’t blame them, there are puzzles aplenty in there, so with one of the seasons’ hot trade targets already in the fold, let’s check out the other.
Dan Uggla may best be remembered for his 2008 All-Star Game appearance in which he committed three errors and went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts and a GIDP, but that’s certainly a far cry from his usual performance. A career .243/.344/.482 hitter, the soon to be 30 year old second baseman has been largely overshaddowed by his double-play mate, one Hanley Ramirez. Still, Uggla has been an above average hitter in each of the last four seasons, hitting more than 25 home runs every season he’s been in the majors and never posting an OPS below .800. His EqA—a measure of his total offensive contribution, prorated by league difficulty, home park, and opposing pitching—has never dipped below the league average mark of .260, meaning he’s always been an offensive asset irrespective of position. When positional factors are taken into account, he’s worth about the same number of wins as Orlando Hudson, Nelson Cruz, and Aramis Ramirez, not at all a bad company to be in.
Last season, Uggla’s numbers fell off a little bit, dropping from .260/.360/.514 to. 243/.354/.459 due in no small part to a regression in his batting average on balls in play–from .320 in 2008 to .274 last year. That figure was never going to stay that high, so a drop in batting average should have been expected. One thing that bodes well for Uggla is that he kept his on-base percentage at almost the same level even with the drop in BA. His strikeouts were down both in relative (27.6% to 22.5%) and absolute terms (171 to 150) and his walk rate jumped from 12.4% to 13.8%.
One major concern I have about Uggla is his home/road split. His home park is a bit of a launching pad, one of the most hitter friendly in the majors in fact, and Uggla is a bit of a product of that. His home line—.251/.386/.513—is good for an OPS+ 21 points above average, or loosely as good as Matt Kemp and Denard Span were over the full season. His away numbers—.235/.321/.408—turned him into Pedro Feliz or Miguel Cairo, 20 points below average. Over his career, the same split exists, though it’s smaller—just 10 points.
I would be more concerned about that split if it were lower across the board, that is, if his away line was .200/.291/.360, I’d be prepared to pass no matter the price. As it stands, even if his away line becomes his overall stats, he’d still be better than any of the hitters the Twins had batting second last season. Additionally, with the addition of JJ Hardy (who has batted second in the order for almost his entire career), Uggla will probably bat seventh or eighth in the order. His power is legitimate wherever he’s playing, he hit 13 no doubt home runs this season, good for 3rd in the NL.
If the Twins aren’t really in need of a marquee hitter, which since the next hitter they acquire will be their 6th hitter at best, then they need to be looking at defense as much as offense. Uggla’s is…enigmatic.
According to UZR, Uggla’s four full seasons have produced lines of 6.9, -9.3, 1.6, and -10.1; Baseball Prospectus’ FRAA (Fielding Runs Above Average) is a little more stable: 5, -19,-2,-1, at least stable enough to draw conclusions from. Uggla is well above replacement level, but below average overall. While he isn’t the guy who made three errors in the All-Star Game, he’s not making anyone forget Joe Morgan. He was close to Alexi Casilla’s level this year, but he is clearly a much better hitter, and thus has a much higher overall value.
If the Twins do bring in Uggla, it will be with the knowledge that he’s a passable defender at second, but hoping that he hits well enough to justify being in there (and having Nick Punto at third base, another consequence of adding a player at second.)
So what we have is a great offensive player whose production will decline because of a switch to the AL and may decline even more if his home/road splits hold up, and whose defense isn’t going to be there to help cushion the fall. Does that mean the Twins shouldn’t look at Uggla? Not necessarily, but they need to understand that they won’t be getting the player who hit .243/.354/.482, and while he may not fall off precipitously, it’s much more likely that he’ll stay on the low side of his career numbers rather than rebound. This is why the increase in walk rate is so critical—plate discipline isn’t something that varies by league.
If he were a free agent, looking only for money and a place to play, I’d be a lot more eager to acquire him. However, not only will Florida be looking for a good return for their two-time All-Star, Uggla will also be looking for a raise during arbitration. He made $5.35 Million in his first year of arbitration and will almost certainly make 1-2 more this season, which would put the Twins to around $80 Million (assuming, perhaps unfairly, that Uggla is acquired and no one from the 25 man roster heads the other way). I can’t imagine payroll going too much higher than that, and, as I’ve noted before, the Twins need to address their rotation. If they feel they can get Carl Pavano back for 2-3 million plus incentives (unlikely), perhaps they could add both he and Uggla, but if they want to pursue Rich Harden, Ben Sheets, or even (heaven forbid it) Jarrod Washburn, they probably will not have the flexibility to accommodate Uggla’s arbitration raise. As previously noted, removing one or more members from the 25-man roster would change these numbers a bit, but if, say Perkins and Casilla, were heading to South Florida, the money saved wouldn’t cover even the raise Uggla was due, let alone his entire contract.
I’m not opposed to Uggla as a player, and for a team like the Cubs, he could make a lot of sense. However, given that Uggla’s arrival would signal not only a jettisoning of a possibly useful player or two in a trade, but also an inability to bring in a high quality pitcher or third baseman, I just don’t see it being the best move for the Twins right now. Should a pitcher join Uggla on his trip north, however, that would change the calculus of this deal substantially.
If it feels like we’ve been in this bunker before, we have. Almost every year for the last 3-4 years, either Jarrod Washburn, his agent, or the Twins’ front office makes some noise about the LaCrosse native playing closer to home and fans are forced to duck and cover.
You can forgive fans for being a little gunshy here, as Washburn has almost never been both a) available and b) a good idea. He’s certainly been one or the other at various points in his career, but the Angels had him locked down for the best years of his career, and he’s been fairly available since his long decline began.
Perhaps you can forgive the front office for thinking that these two states have aligned for the first time ever, making Washburn a great pitcher to add and a free agent with ties to the area, but color me skeptical.
2009 was a tale of two seasons for Washburn, his first four months with Seattle and his nightmare eight starts with the Tigers. In Seattle, Washburn was solid. He went 8-6 with a 2.64 ERA and a 1.07 WHIP, both extremely good numbers. He was boasting a career best K/BB and a career low HR/9. Not only were his hits allowed were down, the balls that did fall in weren’t hit particularly hard; his slugging against was a career low .334. As a flyball pitcher who is home run prone, Washburn’s batting average allowed on balls in play has always been below average, but in 2009, it was low even for him, .245 where league average is between .280 and .300. Of the 20 starts he made for the Mariners, 15 of them were Quality Starts.
Seattle knew he’d be a free agent and traded him at his peak value. July was Washburn’s best month, going 4-1, allowing just seven runs, three home runs, striking out 19 and walking just eight. He was AL pitcher of the month, and Detroit snapped him up.
His time in with the Tigers was so bad, you’d think the Mariners dressed up Carlos Silva in Washburn’s uni and tricked the Tigers into taking him. He gave up 11 runs in his first 11 innings, and things hardly improved from there. In his eight starts with the Tigers, Washburn went 1-3 with a 7.33 ERA and a 1.56 WHIP, his K/BB dropped to a career low and his HR/9 climbed to 2.5. His hits per nine jumped to 10.7 and hitters weren’t getting soft contact, they garnered an OPS of .940 against Washburn. Put another way, he turned every hitter he faced into Miguel Cabrera or Ryan Braun. The Tigers thought Washburn was going to be the guy who propelled them into the playoffs, instead, he became an anchor they were unable to overcome.
Without question, some of this has to do with a knee injury he suffered in his first start with the Tigers. It became so painful for him that he was unable to put full weight on his landing leg, according to a Joe Christensen report, which is bad for anyone, but is devastating for a flyballer like Washburn. Pitches that are supposed to dive out of the zone and induce weak contact are going to hang up and become essentially cannon fodder. Now that the knee has been fixed, Washburn should be back to normal, right?
Not so fast cowboy, there’s two other major pieces in play here: outfield defense and park factor.
As noted, Washburn is a flyball pitcher and always has been. Seattle boasted two of the top 11 outfielders in all of baseball in Franklin Gutierrez and Ichiro Suzuki and boasted the highest team UZR in baseball for all fielders and for outfielders. They turned 71% of balls in play into outs and boasted the third best park adjusted defensive efficiency in baseball. That park plays a role too, as Safeco Field ranked 21st in park factor, a clear sign of a pitchers park; it was even lower in home runs allowed.
So, more of Washburn’s flyballs were staying in the park and the defense behind them was turning those balls into outs at a rate better than any team in the majors.
Contrast that with the Tigers’ defense and park and you can see why this would be an issue. The Tigers weren’t bad on defense, eighth best in terms of outfield defense and fifth best in team defense overall. They were 10th best in park adjusted defensive efficiency and turned just a tic under 70% of balls in play into outs. They were the best unit in the AL Central, but still a far cry from the M’s. Comerica park was a fairly even park, 13th in baseball in park factor and 18th in home runs, so hardly a launching pad, but once again, less favorable to a flyballer like Washburn than Seattle was.
So it was a bad move for the Tigers; it would be an abominable move for the Twins.
The Twins were the third worst defensive team in baseball last year, and carried the worst OF in baseball because of Michael Cuddyer’s declining range and Delmon Young’s…everything. That was before they traded away 2008’s best outfield defender Carlos Gomez, take his UZR out of the mix, and the Twins were almost a win worse than the second worst team in outfield defense. They aren’t going to be better this year, and they may well be worse.
If Washburn was coming to the Dome, which played as a launching pad this year–eighth best to hit home runs in–I’d be picketing this move outside the Twins offices. We’ve no idea how Target field will play, though I can tell you that home runs will be hard to come by before May and will be abundant from May to September based on the effects of temperature on ball-flight. However, wind flow and how the dimensions of the park contribute to deep flies becoming home runs and vice versa remain to be seen. Unless it becomes the new PetCo, however, it isn’t going to remotely make up for the poor defense behind him.
This is the type of deal the Twins old guard used to make. A veteran player, from the area no less, wants to play for the Twins in the twilight of his career, if this were 2006, he’d already be in uniform. Bill Smith has shown himself to be savvier than that and it would behoove him greatly to avoid this deal, no matter how enticing it may seem. In keeping the Tigers from making the playoffs last year, Washburn helped the Twins more than he ever could actually playing for the team.
If it feels like we’ve been in this bunker before, we have. Almost every year for the last 3-4 years, either Jarrod Washburn, his agent, or the Twins’ front office makes some noise about the LaCrosse native playing closer to home and fans are forced to duck and cover.
You can forgive fans for being a little gunshy here, as Washburn has almost never been both a) available and b) a good idea. He’s certainly been one or the other at various points in his career, but the Angels had him locked down for the best years of his career, and he’s been fairly available since his long decline began.
Perhaps you can forgive the front office for thinking that these two states have aligned for the first time ever, making Washburn a great pitcher to add and a free agent with ties to the area, but color me skeptical.
2009 was a tale of two seasons for Washburn, his first four months with Seattle and his nightmare eight starts with the Tigers. In Seattle, Washburn was solid. He went 8-6 with 2.64 ERA and 1.07 WHIP, both extremely good numbers. He was boasting a career best K/BB and a career low HR/9. Not only were his hits allowed were down, the balls that did fall in weren’t hit particularly hard; his slugging against was a career low .334. As a flyball pitcher who is home run prone, Washburn’s batting average allowed on balls in play has always been below average, but in 2009, it was low even for him, .245 where league average is between .280 and .300. Of the 20 starts he made for the Mariners, 15 of them were Quality Starts.
Seattle knew he’d be a free agent and traded him at his peak value. July was Washburn’s best month, going 4-1, allowing just seven runs, three home runs, striking out 19 and walking just eight. He was AL pitcher of the month, and Detroit snapped him up.
His time in with the Tigers was so bad, you’d think the Mariners dressed up Carlos Silva in Washburn’s uni and tricked the Tigers into taking him. He gave up 11 runs in his first 11 innings, and things hardly improved from there. In his eight starts with the Tigers, Washburn went 1-3 with a 7.33 ERA and a 1.56 WHIP, his K/BB dropped to a career low and his HR/9 climbed to 2.5. His hits per nine jumped to 10.7 and hitters weren’t getting soft contact, they garnered an OPS of .940 against Washburn. Put another way, he turned every hitter he faced into Miguel Cabrera or Ryan Braun. The Tigers thought Washburn was going to be the guy who propelled them into the playoffs, instead, he became an anchor they were unable to overcome.
Without question, some of this has to do with a knee injury he suffered in his first start with the Tigers. It became so painful for him that he was unable to put full weight on his landing leg, according to a Joe Christensen report, which is bad for anyone, but is devastating for a flyballer like Washburn. Pitches that are supposed to dive out of the zone and induce weak contact are going to hang up and become essentially cannon fodder. Now that the knee has been fixed, Washburn should be back to normal, right?
Not so fast cowboy, there’s two other major pieces in play here. The first is outfield defense.
As noted, Washburn is a flyball pitcher and always has been. Seattle boasted two of the top 11 outfielders in all of baseball in Franklin Gutierrez and Ichiro Suzuki and boasted the highest team UZR in baseball for all fielders and for outfielders. They turned 71% of balls in play into outs and boasted the third best park adjusted defensive efficiency in baseball. That park plays a role too, as Safeco Field ranked 21st in park factor, a clear sign of a pitchers park; it was even lower in home runs allowed.
So, more of Washburn’s flyballs were staying in the park and the defense behind them was turning those balls into outs at a rate better than any team in the majors.
Contrast that with the Tigers’ defense and park and you can see why this would be an issue. The Tigers weren’t bad on defense, eighth best in terms of outfield defense and fifth best in team defense overall. They were 10th best in park adjusted defensive efficiency and turned just a tic under 70% of balls in play into outs. They were the best unit in the AL Central, but still a far cry from the M’s. Comerica park was a fairly even park, 13th in baseball in park factor and 18th in home runs, so hardly a launching pad, but once again, less favorable to a flyballer like Washburn than Seattle was.
So it was a bad move for the Tigers; it would be an abominable move for the Twins.
The Twins were the third worst defensive team in baseball last year, and carried the worst OF in baseball because of Michael Cuddyer’s declining range and Delmon Young’s…everything. That was before they traded away 2008’s best outfield defender Carlos Gomez, take his UZR out of the mix, and the Twins were almost a win worse than the second worst team in outfield defense. They aren’t going to be better this year, and they may well be worse.
If Washburn was coming to the Dome, which played as a launching pad this year–eighth best to hit home runs in–I’d be picketing this move outside the Twins offices. We’ve no idea how Target field will play, though I can tell you that home runs will be hard to come by before May and will be abundant from May to September based on the effects of temperature on ball-flight. However, wind flow and how the dimensions of the park contribute to deep flies becoming home runs and vice versa remain to be seen. Unless it becomes the new PetCo, however, it isn’t going to remotely make up for the poor defense behind him.
This is the type of deal the Twins old guard used to make. A veteran player, from the area no less, wants to play for the Twins in the twilight of his career, if this were 2006, he’d already be in uniform. Bill Smith has shown himself to be savvier than that and it would behoove him greatly to avoid this deal, no matter how enticing it may seem.
A good portion of this piece will call back to point two of my Off-Season Plan , please refer back if you missed it!
With the Twins limping along behind the Tigers and the White Sox hot on their heels, with the Sept. 1 deadline for playoff rosters bearing down on them, news came that the Twins had claimed Rich Harden on waivers from the Cubs and were going to make a serious attempt to acquire him in hopes that he would bolster the rotation for a title run. Blogs fired up, the Twitter stream was all abuzz, and we waited with bated breath to hear if he of the glass arm would be heading to the Twin Cities.
In fact, Harden may never have been claimed by the Twins, many reports said an NL team had claimed him, meaning that his name never would have reached Bill Smith. True or not, the point was moot in the end, the Twins got fantastic production from Brian Duensing, a good turn or two from Jeff Manship, and better-than-expected work from Carl Pavano. Harden might have given the Twins a different look, but he wouldn’t have been the difference between a playoff run and a long offseason; they did just fine without him.
I was fairly ambivalent about the trade when it was proposed, feeling that Harden wasn’t the key missing piece and that the Twins could be tricked into giving up too much for him if they believed he was the difference between a deep run and October golf.
Now that Harden is a free agent, worries about exaggerated value can be allayed to a large extent; all that’s at stake for the Twins now is money. This is not to say that throwing a bag o’ cash at Harden is a risk-free proposition, but the Twins were likely to try to resign Harden had they acquired him earlier, meaning that those costs are pretty much fixed and the variable is who they would have had to give up to get Harden before season’s end.
The book on Harden has been pretty well written despite the fact that he’s just 28 years old. When he’s healthy, he’s electric. He’s got three good pitches: A fastball that averages 92 MPH, a changeup around 84, and a splitter that mimics his change. He threw a slider during his days in Oakland, but the Cubs had him stop throwing it, as well as his wicked split, in an effort to reduce the strain on his elbow.
That’s the rub with Harden you know, he’s made of glass. He’s never thrown 200 innings, heck, he’s thrown 150 or more just once. Forget 20-game winner, whoever signs Harden will be hoping he makes 20 starts per season for them. The Cubs managed to hold onto him for 1.5 years, getting 38 starts out of him during that time. He went on the DL just once this season with a back strain, though a mechanical flaw necessitated an early end to his season, though with the Cubs well out of the race by September, it’s hard to gauge how serious that injury was.
He’s never had surgery, though he’s had injuries to his back, oblique, UCL, and shoulder, the last of which kept him out of the WBC, but did not cause him to miss any time. So he’s had a grab bag of injuries, which is both good and bad. On the one hand, it means a harder task for the training staff in terms of keeping everything from top to bottom in playing shape, but on the other, it means there isn’t one nagging injury that’s kept him out for all this time. That’s always good news, but especially for pitchers. That Harden hasn’t spent weeks and months on the DL with consistent elbow or shoulder trouble gives me hope that he can remain healthy over a longer period of time.
Additionally, any injury for Harden is going to be magnified because of his history. His 51 starts over the last two seasons is more than any Twins starter except for Nick Blackburn and Scott Baker, so it isn’t as though he’s been missing tons of time recently, it’s more a case of the time he has missed being exaggerated due to his years of nine and four starts in 2006 and 2007 respectively.
This may seem like damning with faint praise (“he isn’t THAT injury prone”), but if so, it’s only because the upside is so obvious.
This video, taken against the Phillies in 2008, shows what Harden is capable of. Need I remind you, this is the same Phillies team that would go on to win the World Series, and Harden makes them look bad. Worse than bad. The Twins, as I have said before, need a guy who can miss bats and get hitters out on his own—Harden can do just that.
Even after the Cubs took away his out pitch, a decision the Twins can make for themselves, Harden struck out nearly 11 hitters per nine, though his walk rate did reach 4.28 per nine. Nevertheless, as he came to rely on the strikeout less and less, Harden lowered his LD percent, raised his GB percent, and raised his IFFB percent (pop-up rate, more or less). His Stuff rating of 30, provided by Baseball Prospectus, ranks him as the 10th best starter in the majors last season, three times better than league average. His QERA, the pound-for-pound best predictive pitching stat available right now, was 3.57, 15th best among pitchers who threw at least 130 innings.
But his more traditional metrics seem to tell a different story: 9-9, 4.09 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, and a Support Neutral Winning Percentage of .488 (what percentage of Harden’s starts were winnable assuming normalized offensive production, bullpen support, and team defense) are all fine numbers but nothing to crow about. So what causes the breakdown from his great peripherals to very mediocre actual performance?
Two major factors lead him down the primrose path. First, his HR/FB rate was astronomically high, 15-percent, which lead to a HR/9 of 1.47. If that doesn’t strike you as really high, think of it this way—for every six flyballs Harden gave up, one left the park and they were leaving once or twice a game. Some of that is park related, he gave up 1/3 more HR at Wrigley than he did on the road and was generally hit harder there, and some of it is luck. According to Hit Tracker Online, Harden gave up only three No Doubt home runs, meaning that he wasn’t getting blasted so much as getting really unlucky. In any case, outside of the Friendly Confines his rates should normalize and that major Achilles’ heel will be a significantly smaller issue. Second, his BABIP was 20 points over his career and league average (both about .280). BABIP is one of the quintessential luck based metrics, so expecting that to regress to around .280 isn’t much of a leap of faith at all.
Two more factors will determine whether or not Harden becomes a Twin and how he would do if acquired.
Upon Harden’s return to the AL, he’ll be instantly under assault. As of 2007, pitchers moving from the NL to the AL saw their ERA rise by about .75 runs, which would push Harden near 5.00 if he repeats last year’s performance (as indicated above, I’m confident he’ll be better). There will be a battle waged for Harden’s stats as his skill-based metrics will rise due to overall league difficulty, but his luck-based metrics will regress back to their mean. Its enough to keep Harden in the NL, especially if he wants a short-term deal to rebuild some value.
That value piece is what may ultimately keep Harden from opening the season at Target Field. Speculation has Harden’s value ranging from seven million per season for a one-year deal (while this was originally said in the context of an AL team, I have to believe Harden will remain in the NL if the idea is to raise his value for next off-season) to $10 Million per year. I’m reticent to recommend a deal on the upper range of that because, as much as I believe he’ll be healthy going forward, there is a greater than normal chance that he won’t be.
If the Twins are deciding between three years $30 million and four years $33 million, I’d take the second deal. At 28, Harden has a number of good years ahead of him before his stuff will begin to decline, so adding the extra year or two doesn’t push the Twins into the “why in the world do we even have this guy on the roster” zone. He’d be 32 when a four year deal expired, hardly headed for Social Security checks. That four-year $33 million deal looks like a pretty fair one to me. I’d be willing to go a little higher, but the lack of good starting pitching in this market isn’t a good reason to overpay to the extreme.
So Harden makes sense for someone, but why should it be the Twins.
Simply put, they can afford the risk. In a market where you can make the argument that Randy Wolf is the second best arm available, acquiring Harden and his inherent risks isn’t that much different than bringing in one of the midlevel vets, hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. The difference is that there’s a really good chance that Harden actually reaches his expected value, whereas Daniel Cabrera and Rich Hill are pretty much locks NOT to reach their potential.
If they bring in Harden and he does well, their rotation shapes up thusly: Harden, Baker, Slowey, Blackburn, Perkins/Bonser/Liriano/Duensing. That’s a good rotation, Slowey could be the best No. 3 in baseball in that case, and a playoff set of Harden/Baker/Slowey with Blackburn keeping anyone from short rest is formidable to be sure. If it doesn’t work out, the Twins are left with: Baker, Slowey, Blackburn, Harden, (fifth pitcher du jour) and if he’s injured, two of those arms come into play.
If the Twins don’t sign Harden, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see them re-sign late season acquisition Carl Pavano, who I like fine, but who doesn’t have the ceiling he used to. If Pavano is brought in, he’s probably the Twins’ third or fourth starter, depending on Nick Blackburn’s performance, leaving the Twins with a rotation of Baker, Slowey, Pavano, Blackburn, Spare Arm No. 5 at best. Pavano is no iron man himself, so it’s likely he’d find himself on the trainers table and miss a start or two, which, of course, is no different than if Harden or even Roy Halladay were there instead. While having to throw two of the Twins’ chattel arms isn’t ideal, those players are better than those most teams have in that position. A start or two from Glen Perkins never killed anyone, and the Twins are likely to have a better option available to them in Liriano or Swarzak.
Carl Pavano makes the Twins better by keeping Glen Perkins off the field, and that’s no small improvement, but he is another guy who is going to put the ball in play a lot, get a small handful of strikeouts and generally be a decent but not great pitcher. Rich Harden is a strikeout arm who can improve the team being a really good pitcher AND keeping a bad pitcher off the field. Pavano isn’t signing for no money, and given the talent discrepancy between the two, the Twins would be wise to spend the extra money and get themselves a pitcher who gives hitters a very different look from the one they saw the day before and the one they’re likely to see the day after.
Harden is not a mortal lock for a Cy Young award, he’s not a sure ace, he’s not even a lock to make 20 starts. However, he is an incredibly talented pitcher when he’s healthy and he’s the type of arm the Twins sorely needed last year. You don’t get many chances to add guys in free agency who were striking out more than a batter an inning who don’t have some glaring question mark, and Harden’s (his health) can be mitigated. Getting him away from the hitter’s paradise that is Wrigley Field circa June and July will help keep his HR rates low and will allow him to be more aggressive, which should help him keep his walks in check.
Harden’s talent is too good to pass up when the Twins sorely need someone with his skill set and have pieces available to mitigate his downside. He may not be the one piece standing between them and a parade down Hennepin Ave., but there is no doubt in my mind that he improves the team more than any other pitcher realistically available to the Twins.
Really big news today out of Minneapolis for the Twins. Hear John Meyer, the Twins MVB, and his opinions on this big trade. Also, make sure to leave your opinions on this move? Are you going to miss Carlos Gomez? Are you happy to have a player like JJ Hardy?
* Note – when I said they’d have extra money to sign a 2B or SS, I meant 2B or 3B, my bad.
I also want to wish Carlos Gomez best of luck in Milwaukee. He was certainly an entertaining player in Minneapolis, but this move really made sense for the team. It did however make me think of his Twins debut on Opening Day in 2008. I nabbed this video from way up in the upper deck GA seats. Gomez stole two bases on that first day and it’s hard to argue that everything else was pretty much downhill after that. (Other than the cycle against the White Sox in 2008)
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