The Futility Infielder

A Baseball Journal by Jay Jaffe I'm a baseball fan living in New York City. In between long tirades about the New York Yankees and the national pastime in general, I'm a graphic designer.

Saturday, November 27, 2004

 

Remaking the Yankees for 2005, Part II: The Market for Righty Starters

When we last left the Yankees, they had only three starters under contract for 2005: Mike Mussina, Javier Vazquez, and Kevin Brown. I wrote that I thought it likely either or both Vazquez or Brown could be traded. As I began writing this piece, I was convinced Vazquez would likely be wearing pinstripes next season -- either the midnight blue ones of the wealthy team in the Bronx or the purple ones of that bankrupt team in the desert, as the key component in a deal for Randy Johnson. Relatively young, with a track record of success (at least until his second-half collapse), a clean bill of health, and an upside that may yet place him among the game's elite pitchers, Vazquez would appear to be a desirable commodity for a team trading its ace.

But beyond the fact that Javy's owed $36 million on his contract, ESPN's Peter Gammons has offered up a couple of compelling reasons why a trade involving Vazquez wouldn't make sense for the D-Backs. First, as a player traded in the middle of a multi-year contract, Vazquez would have the right to demand a trade at the end of next season. Second, the Snakes' new CEO, Jeff Moorad, is a former agent who Vazquez fired two years ago. I'll buy that line of thinking, especially the first reason, but I'm getting off the bus at Gammo offering up the possibility that the Yanks could substitute Tom Gordon and Kenny Lofton, both dealable to other clubs in exchange for young talent. There's no way in hell they get away with perhaps the game's best pitcher for the price of a top setup man and a lame-duck backup centerfielder. Somebody had better check Gammons' medication.

On the topic of Brown, while the Yankee brass may desire to toss him in the first ditch that offers them salary relief, that clearly won't be easy, given that he's got a no-trade contract. More than any fine or punishment they could have levied, the Yanks would have done well to strongarm Brown into waiving that clause back when he decided to spar with a clubhouse wall. As is is, they have a distinct lack of leverage in holding a $15 million dollar no-trade contract on a surly gimp, and it may take until springtime to make him somebody else's problem.

So whether it's two starters or three, or four, let's just say that the Yanks are in the market in a big way, and with four years since their last World Championship, they're looking to make a splash. A potential Johnson deal would be one way to do it, signing Pedro Martinez away from their heated rivals would be another, and luring Roger Clemens out of yet another retirement to haul his Texas-sized derriere back up to New York... well, that ain't gonna happen.

But the incredible thing is that if we look at all of the pitchers on the free-agent market and rank them by DIPS ERA (dERA), which has been shown to correlate better with the following season's ERA than the pitcher's actual ERA, there's the Rocket, seventh Cy Young Award under his arm, facing the sunset of his incredible career, and yet still at the top of the list. That's in part because of his strikeout rate, which is still better than one batter per inning. Strikeout rate is the best predictor of a pitcher's longevity and future success. Strikeouts don't become hits, they almost never become baserunners, and they never go over the fence; they take the element of chance out of the equation, and that helps to keep runs off the board.

Johnson, who we may as well include on our free-agent list since he's likely to depart Arizona once somebody antes up, rates even higher than Clemens does, not only because his K rate is higher by 1.5 per nine innings, but also because of his astounding control -- more than six times as many walks per strikeouts. Throw that in with a low homer rate and you've got a pitcher who's still dominant and may well be into his mid-40s. Were it not for the BBWAA's obsession with won-loss records, Johnson, who went 16-14 for a team that lost 111 games, would have tied Clemens by winning his sixth Cy Young Award earlier this month.

But besides those two, there aren't too many strikeout pitchers on the market. Of the 31 free agent starters who threw more than nine innings last year, only nine of them averaged more than seven strikeouts per nine innings -- a number not too far above the league averages of 6.45 in the AL and 6.74 in the NL. Toss in the fact that at least three of those pitchers in the sevens have some issues -- we'll get to 'em -- and it's reasonable to say that while this market is deep, it's hardly spectacular.

Along with the 31 plus Johnson, I'm also going to list the relevant stats for Oakland's big three of Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito, because the conventional wisdom is that GM Billy Beane will make a trade involving at least one of these hurlers, and if there's a deal to be made, you can guess that the Yankees might be interested. So here are the 35 in all:
Team Pitcher       W  L   IP  ERA   WHIP  K/9   K/W   HR/9  BABIP  dERA

ARI R. Johnson* 16 14 246 2.60 0.90 10.62 6.59 0.66 .264 2.42 trade rumors
HOU R. Clemens 18 4 214 2.98 1.16 9.15 2.76 0.63 .275 3.18
ATL J. Wright 15 8 186 3.28 1.28 7.68 2.27 0.53 .292 3.39
OAK T. Hudson 12 6 189 3.53 1.26 4.91 2.34 0.38 .297 3.58 trade rumors
FLA C. Pavano 18 8 222 3.00 1.17 5.63 2.84 0.65 .282 3.60
CHC G. Rusch* 6 2 130 3.47 1.23 6.25 2.73 0.69 .287 3.65 signed CHC
BOS P. Martinez 16 9 217 3.90 1.17 9.41 3.72 1.08 .291 3.70
MIN B. Radke 11 8 220 3.48 1.16 5.86 5.50 0.94 .293 3.70
PHI K. Millwood 9 6 141 4.85 1.46 7.98 2.45 0.89 .327 3.75
NYY J. Lieber 14 8 177 4.33 1.32 5.20 5.67 1.02 .323 3.77
NYM K. Benson 12 12 200 4.31 1.31 6.02 2.20 0.67 .295 3.87 signed NYM
CHC M. Clement 9 13 181 3.68 1.28 9.45 2.47 1.14 .279 3.95
NYY O. Hernandez 8 2 85 3.30 1.29 8.93 2.33 0.96 .284 3.98
STL C. Carpenter 15 5 182 3.46 1.14 7.52 4.00 1.19 .277 4.00
SDN D. Wells* 12 8 196 3.73 1.14 4.65 5.05 1.06 .274 4.16
STL W. Williams 11 8 190 4.18 1.32 6.22 2.26 0.95 .286 4.18
LAN O. Perez* 7 6 196 3.25 1.14 5.87 2.91 1.19 .263 4.21
ATL P. Byrd 8 7 114 3.94 1.24 6.22 4.16 1.42 .288 4.25
CHC R. Dempster 1 1 21 3.92 1.40 7.84 1.38 0.44 .254 4.27
BOS D. Lowe 14 12 183 5.42 1.61 5.17 1.48 0.74 .327 4.40
OAK B. Zito* 11 11 213 4.48 1.39 6.89 2.01 1.18 .291 4.53 trade rumors
OAK M. Mulder* 17 8 226 4.43 1.36 5.58 1.69 1.00 .286 4.67 trade rumors
CIN P. Wilson 11 6 184 4.36 1.39 5.73 1.86 1.27 .284 4.67
ATL R. Ortiz 15 9 205 4.13 1.51 6.29 1.28 1.01 .282 4.77
LAN J. Lima 13 5 170 4.07 1.24 4.91 2.74 1.74 .268 4.89
NYY E. Loaiza 10 7 183 5.70 1.57 5.75 1.65 1.57 .311 4.91
COL J. Wright 2 3 79 4.12 1.61 4.69 0.91 0.92 .277 4.96
NYM A. Leiter* 10 8 174 3.21 1.35 6.06 1.21 0.83 .240 4.98
STL M. Morris 15 10 202 4.72 1.29 5.84 2.34 1.56 .273 5.08
PHI E. Milton* 14 6 201 4.75 1.35 7.21 2.15 1.93 .263 5.18
ANA A. Sele 9 4 132 5.05 1.62 3.48 1.00 1.09 .313 5.26
COL S. Estes* 15 8 202 5.84 1.62 5.21 1.11 1.34 .301 5.46
FLA I. Valdez 14 9 170 5.19 1.48 3.55 1.37 1.75 .282 5.84
LAN H. Nomo 4 11 84 8.25 1.75 5.79 1.29 2.04 .314 6.03
TOR P. Hentgen 2 9 80 6.95 1.64 3.70 0.79 1.79 .266 6.36
Of the righthanders on this list, the biggest name, of course, is Pedro Martinez. The longtime ace of the Red Sox is hitting the market following the expiration of a seven-year, $90 million deal which saw him not only net two Cy Youngs and a World Championship while in Boston, but also establish himself as one of the greatest pitchers of all time. Over the first six years in Boston, Martinez's ERA+ was an astounding 210, meaning that his ERA was less than half of the adjusted league average. But last year, although he threw the most innings he had in four seasons, his line was considerably more ordinary. He allowed 26 homers, one more than he had in the previous three seasons combined. On the other hand, while his strikeout rate has steadily eroded from a high of 12.57 per nine innings, it's still above one hitter per inning. The same thing can be said about his control; his K/W rate was a criminally insane 8.88 back in 1999 (313 K to 37 walks) and it's now "down" to 3.72.

Those are still numbers that most of the 32 pitchers on this list who have fewer Cy Youngs than him would give their throwing arms for. They perfectly illustrate the reason why power pitchers last longer, career-wise, than finesse pitchers -- they have much more margin for error, much further to fall before they become "average". Pedro Martinez may no longer be one of the game's elite pitchers, but he's still pretty damn good.

That said, Martinez has long had questions about his health, particularly his shoulder. His inability to pitch late into ballgames is well-documented, though he did last a half-inning longer per start in '04 than the previous season, and his splits don't show the same dramatic falloff that made Grady Little's decision to stay with him in the seventh game of the 2003 ALCS so infamously lunkheaded in retrospect. Consider:
#   1-15  16-30  31-45  46-60  61-75  76-90  91-105  106-120

PA 111 127 123 126 123 127 100 43
OPS 1.017 .470 .714 .695 .733 .744 .533 .621
It looks as though Martinez has a tendency to find trouble instantly but gain strength as the game continues, and the Sox clearly were a bit more cautious in cutting him off if he wasn't sailing along past the 90-pitch mark.

Beyond that, Pedro has a flair for the dramatic, both on and off the field, to say the least. The Red Sox tended to let him play by his own rules, especially regarding travel to the Domincan Republic around the All-Star Break, slack that Martinez seems loathe to acknowledge in his public comments regarding negotiations. The Sox initially offered him a two-year deal worth $25.5 million, with a $13-million option for a third year and $2 million in performance bonuses. Pedro took his show on the road, meeting with George Steinbrenner in a move that many have speculated was done less out of desire to join forces than to help for both parties to gain leverage -- Martinez with the Sox, the Yanks with the Diamondbacks in a possible Johnson deal. Since then, reports have emerged that the Yanks have offered a four-year deal worth $50 million but that Pedro's seeking $60 million, money he likely won't get out of the Yanks, to say nothing of the Sox.

Is Pedro a good fit for the Yankees? I detest him, frankly, and so do over 70 percent of the New York Post readers who responded to a poll on the matter last week, not that I'm eager to lump myself in with that crowd. But putting the emotional issues aside, I still think he's a high risk, especially long-term. The man can still pitch, though I doubt he'll garner the late-career Cy Youngs that Clemens and Johnson have because of his physical makeup -- he's smaller (nearly a foot shorter than Johnson) and has always been less durable than either of them. There would likely be friction as he tries to fit in with the Yanks -- moreso than when Clemens came over.

But there's an added value in taking him away from the Red Sox, not only on the level of psychology but simply because it requires Boston to come up with another frontline pitcher. On that note, I'd rather see the Yanks overpay a bit for a two-year deal, even if it means coming close to to the astronomical, archaic salary he drew in 2004 ($17.5 million). I'd be extremely nervous if they go three our four years, because I doubt Pedro's shelf life as an elite pitcher will last much longer than that. That said, I think he's likely to use his Yankee leverage to extract a bigger deal out of Boston at the 11th hour, keeping that little corner of the universe intact for awhile longer.

Among the rest of the righties, the name which is generating the most buzz is Carl Pavano -- ironically, the key player in the deal which sent Pedro from Montreal to Boston in the first place. Coming off of a fabulous 2003 postseason in which he helped the Marlins beat the Yankees in the World Series, Pavano had a breakout year in 2004, setting career highs in innings, strikeouts, and wins. His K rate is rather pedestrian, especially for a big guy (6'5", 240 lbs). Instead he's a groundballer with good control who avoids the long ball, and he's very efficient, averaging only 3.47 pitches per batter, good for ninth among qualifiers (162 innings; Yankee pitcher Jon Lieber was third with 3.40). That efficiency helped him eat innings, an average of 7.17 per start, worth noting for a team that overused its bullpen because it couldn't get length out of its rotation.

Injuries have kept Pavano from throwing a lot of innings historically, but he's got a clean bill of health at the moment, and on the verge of turning 29, he's got only two years of 200+ innings under his belt, something that might be considered a positive after Javy Vazquez's struggles. He's going to be hotly pursued, with the Sox, who drafted him, appearing to make the most noise. Given that he's from Connecticut and has been exposed to the game's top East Coast rivalry, it wouldn't be surprising to see him end up on whichever of the rivals doesn't sign Pedro.

Matt Clement, 30, has been overlooked amid a Cubs rotation that featured Mark Prior, Kerry Wood and Carlos Zambrano, but he fit right in among that high K-rate bunch. He's a bit gopher-prone, but his control has improved considerably over the last few years. He suffered a second-half meltdown by trying to pitch through a sore shoulder and yielded a 6.10 ERA over the final two months of the season; his workload was enough of a concern that he got a yellow light from Will Carroll. All of that plus the fact that his 9-13 record doesn't look too impressive (he was one of the unluckiest pitchers in the majors in that regard) will keep his market value down and likely scare a team like the Yanks away. I'm told that he shaved that nasty pubic beard he was sporting, but even growing it in the first place is another strike against him. Toronto seems poised to snare him, and they can have him.

Of the tier of younger pitchers reaching free agency, the one I'm most intrigued by -- almost in spite of myself -- is Jaret Wright. For a kid who started a seventh game of the World Series at 21 (Cleveland,1997), his career certainly hasn't panned out as expected. After promising beginnings, arm troubles cost him the better part of three seasons, and he wound up in the bullpen as a last-ditch effort. An 8.37 ERA in 47.1 innings in San Diego in 2003 looked like the end, but the Braves, particularly coach Leo Mazzone, saw something they liked in him -- a high-90s fastball -- claimed him off waivers, instructed him to keep the ball down, and he threw 13 innings of late-season relief, allowing two runs and striking out a man per inning. This year they put him in the rotation and he finally put together a season of the caliber that's made him a first-round draft pick, with a good K rate, reasonably good control, and an extremely low HR rate -- figures that add up to the lowest dERA of any starter on the market without a Hall of Fame pedigree. But despite of the fact that the Braves literally resurrected his career, he seems to be pricing his way out of Atlanta. Can he repeat his performance elsewhere? With his reputedly lousy mechanics, can he stay healthy? If the Yanks had a better pitching coach -- a Rick Peterson, a Dave Duncan, hell, a Leo Mazzone, I'd recommend they take a shot. As it is, I think more solid bets abound.

Also in the less-than-solid bet camp, but with a much longer track record, is Kevin Millwood, who turns 30 in December. Once a mainstay of the Braves' rotation, he was traded to Philly in a much-ridiculed deal which sent catcher Johnny Estrada in the other direction. One All-Star catcher versus $21 million of league-average pitching later, it's the Braves who are laughing. At first glance Millwood's numbers look fairly enticing -- high strikeout rate, reasonable control and HR rates (especially for the new Citizens Bank Ballpark, a homer haven). But his ERA was over a run higher than his dERA due to a high hit rate on balls in play (.327), in part because he gave up a high rate of line drives, leaving hitters a lot more smackable pitches. That's not good. Worse, he was limited to a mere six innings pitched after July due to a sprained ligament and tendon in his right elbow, eliciting a well-earned red light from Will Carroll. The Yankees don't need this kind of trouble.

Finally, among the righthanders who might plausibly be on the Yanks' radar, Tim Hudson. The lanky A's hurler is in the final year of a deal which will pay him $6 million, and like Jason Giambi and Miguel Tejada before him, Oakland GM Billy Beane isn't sure he can sign him. With youngsters Rich Harden and Joe Blanton emerging, Beane can afford to take a shot at trading one of his big three of Hudson, Zito and Mulder, and since the former is in his walk year, dealing him makes a certain kind of sense, especially since the A's seem poised to take on a big chunk of salary with the impending Jason Kendall deal. After three years of 235+ inning workhorse pitching with an ERA+ of 147 (spell that A-C-E), Hudson had a bit of a rough season in 2004, missing about seven weeks due to an oblique muscle strain. He was still pretty good, though a bad September roughed up his ERA a bit. But his strikeout rate -- never his strong suit -- fell off considerably, and his control suffered a bit too as he compensated his mechanics to deal with his injury.

As always, it will be most interesting to see how Beane plays this hand. The Yanks don't have the ingredients to pursue a direct deal with Oakland, because it's inconceivable the A's would take on Javy Vazquez and his contract, and even if NY ate most of Kevin Brown's salary, he's unlikely to approve a deal to a west-coast team. The most tradeable Yankee hitter at this point, Jorge Posada, plays a position the A's are on the verge of filling, and the Yankee farm system is in dreadful shape from a major league-ready standpoint. The bottom line is that it would take a third team, one likely interested in Vazquez, to get a deal done, and that would still leave the Yanks eating a considerable chunk of salary. I wouldn't put it past Beane to wrangle such a trade, but I simply don't see it happening.

Since this piece is approaching epic-length, I'm going to hold off on the lefty portion until my next post, in which I'll also run through a few possible scenarios to see how this all maps out for the Yanks.

• • •

A couple of technical notes: the DIPS ERAs used in this article were generated via Voros McCracken's DIPS 2.0 recipe except that actual numbers for batters faced were used instead of estimates. Strikeout and walk data within that formula was not park-adjusted, but the homer data was, according to this method. Since I have now done this for three years in a row, I used a three-year Park HR factor, weighted 3-2-1 for 2004-2003-2002. The only exceptions were for Cincinnati, which is only two years old so I used a 3-2 weighting; and for Philadelphia and San Diego, which opened last year, and for which I calculated as two parts 2004, one part neutral.

Also, I am grateful to Larry Mahnken of the fine Replacement Level Yankees Weblog and The Hardball Times for some assistance in the data-gathering phase of this endeavor. Thanks, Larry.

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