John Grabow Agrees to Re-Sign With Cubs

by Charlie on Nov 19, 2009 5:49 PM EST Comment 23 comments

Pittsburgh Pirates' John Grabow, right, and Robinson Diaz high-five after the Pirates' 8-3 victory over the San Diego Padres in a baseball game in San Diego, Sunday, April 26, 2009. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi)

9 months ago: Pittsburgh Pirates' John Grabow, right, and Robinson Diaz high-five after the Pirates' 8-3 victory over the San Diego Padres in a baseball game in San Diego, Sunday, April 26, 2009. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi)

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For two years and $7 million or more, which is a good, if not completely unreasonable, chunk of change for him. (Grabow made $2.3 million in 2009, his last year of arbitration.) If the reports about Jason Bay rejecting a $60 million deal from the usually-pretty-circumspect Red Sox are also accurate, we could be looking at a surprisingly robust free agent market this winter.

It's been interesting to see so many former Pirates quickly re-sign with their new teams--first Freddy Sanchez and Jack Wilson, and now Grabow. After you leave the Pirates, going anywhere else must seem fantastic.

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i dont know

going by what i ve gathered here, jim hendry is far from the smartest GM, so wth… if this is, in fact, an indication of the direction teams are taking, I m glad the Bucs seem to be more economical. Epstein is pretty stat-driven, by all appearances, so I don’t know if they want to offer much more for Bay- having the luxury of big money backing you does make it easier. I can Bay being productive for another 2-3 years, he’s been consistently good with the bat so far, but he will keep getting worse in the field. I also expect his batting to fall off slowly…

My hunch (as I said in the fanshot) is someone will give him a deal like 6/$100M, and regret the last 3 years, possibly more…

by BurgherKing on Nov 19, 2009 6:03 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

just as i bad-mouth hendry

looks like a pretty good deal he pulled out there for a reliever non-tender candidate, Aaron Heilman, from the Dbacks!

by BurgherKing on Nov 19, 2009 6:09 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Eh

Heilman can be useful, and neither of the guys the Cubs picked up is anything special. A generic relief prospect and a 1B with no power.

by Vlad on Nov 20, 2009 7:50 AM EST via mobile up reply actions 0 recs

A site called FanGraphs

Has blasted the Grabow signing, describing him essentially as a dime-a-dozen reliever who luckily had a low ERA last year and who is very replacable. Statistics make my head spin so take it for what its worth.

As to Freddy & Jack, I can’t help but wonder if two other times contracted Piratosis (or Piraticus parisitis or Piraticus parallisis) by signing them – i.e., plugging the dike with remedies based more on their reputation than their potential for future performance.

by Trogluddite on Nov 19, 2009 6:39 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Grabow is very middle of the road, probaby below average. He just looked great to us because the rest of what we had in the pen was atrocious , except for Hanrahan and Meek.

by Adam Reynolds on Nov 19, 2009 6:52 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

and Chavez.

he was pretty handy.

by BlindSquirrel on Nov 19, 2009 9:24 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Not understanding the Grabow hate

He looked good pretty much every year he was here – it wasn’t just relative to last year’s black hole.

Looking at Cameron’s article, he makes the rather nonsensical argument that a “league average” reliever is only worth “league minimum.” Last I checked, “replacement” does not equal “average.” Does he think that every team has 2-3 league-average relievers in AAA?

Furthermore, he says “the entirety of his value” came from stranding runners at an unsustainably high rate. Where does he get this claim from? By combining the past 2 seasons’ LOB%. But last year’s LOB% was the highest of his career, by 7 percentage points. Every other year of his career, his LOB% has been between 65 and 78.6% (which, as a whole, is lower – worse – than league average).

IOW, Cameron picks the worst year of Grabow’s career and combines it with last year (which wasn’t great, but wasn’t terrible – FIP 4.2), and pretends the previous 4 years didn’t happen. Shitty, shitty analysis from someone who’s supposed to be better.

(Note: Cameron says nothing about age, likely aging profile, etc. – this is not a forward-looking analysis that says Grabow’s skills are likely to decline; it’s an analysis that pretends Grabow’s career is 2 seasons long)

by JRoth95 on Nov 20, 2009 12:31 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

To be clear

I don’t think Grabow’s Rivera-in-disguise. I’d peg him a bit above average with good reliability. Given how unreliable relievers are as a group, there’s a lot of value in knowing that you’re not counting on a guy who may well turn into a pumpkin. Odds are, Grabow’s no pumpkin. That’s worth a few million to a team with playoff pretensions.

by JRoth95 on Nov 20, 2009 12:33 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

His 4.2 FIP is squarely below-average in the MLB, in fact it is 94th out of 145. His career FIP is 4.18, which is below average every year.

In non-alphabet soup terms, Grabow gives up too many walks. It’s an extreme stretch to consider Grabow even a mediocre reliever given his track record.

by Adam Reynolds on Nov 20, 2009 1:14 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Also, why the certainty that he won’t “turn into a pumpkin” when his walk rate has sharply increased each of the past 2 years?

by Adam Reynolds on Nov 20, 2009 1:32 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Up sharply from a career low number – that means nothing. In fact his ‘08 BB/9 was the same as his ’05 (granted, that wasn’t a great year), suggesting that it bounces around, not that there’s some visible trend.

by JRoth95 on Nov 20, 2009 4:08 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Then again in his 6 MLB seasons, the last 2 years were his highest BB/9. Also, last year was his lowest strikeout rate. Even regarding your point, a guy with a bouncing BB rate isn’t exactly the model or reliability.

by Adam Reynolds on Nov 20, 2009 6:06 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Clarification/Correction

Rereading, I see that I used “last year” confusingly (a danger in late fall, I suppose). Grabow’s outlier LOB% was in ‘08 (he had elbow issues that year, didn’t he?); it came down to just a bit better than league average in ’09.

by JRoth95 on Nov 20, 2009 12:47 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

not grabow hate

i think everyone agrees he’s one of the better relievers out there. Still, committing $7.5M over 2 years is on the high side, and the Cubs were supposed to be somewhat hard-pressed for cash.

Grabow was also luckier than his ERA suggests.

by BurgherKing on Nov 20, 2009 12:52 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Every team probably has 2-3 relievers...

…capable of delivering a league average season sitting around in AAA. Coming into the year, we had Chavez and Meek sitting at AAA, and Jackson was similar AAA fodder before we claimed him and called him up.

A lot of teams are reluctant to give PT to random AAA arms because the optics look bad if they conspicuously fail once or twice right away (and even good relievers fail some of the time). But that doesn’t mean that the relievers in question couldn’t handle the job if it were given to them.

Grabow has, in general, been an average-ish reliever during his time with the Pirates. His ERA was ahead of his peripherals the last two years, and behind it in several seasons before that, but most of the time his performances have suggested an ERA in the low 4s as his true level of talent. Which is fine, but not something I’d want to pay $3-4M per to get.

by Vlad on Nov 20, 2009 12:51 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

The other factor...

…is the opportunity cost associated with sorting through relievers to find the ones who can be average on the cheap. If you’re a contender, you aren’t going to want to rely on unproven (i.e. high-variance) commodities, when you can buy lower variance with extra $$.

Whether those commodities are actually lower variance, or just perceived as such, is of course another question.

by Vlad on Nov 20, 2009 12:53 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Good Points

Especially on avoiding the sorting – for us, it’s no big deal to give Romulo Sanchez a dozen medium-leverage opportunities to see what he can do; for a team that can’t afford to give away games, you either test him only in mop-up roles (not very informative) or you take a big risk.

I certainly take your point on variance – as I’ve said before, I believe that (something like) 75% of relievers are basically a crapshoot – but I think that an important factor is the league catching up with guys. What you get from Grabow is knowing that the league isn’t suddenly going to realize how to hit him – if it were that simple, they would have done it 3 years ago. But with guys like Jackson and Chavez, you spend all season wondering “is he for real?” and you don’t find out until late in the year (apparent answers: no, yes). That’s really deadly for teams in a pennant race – imagine your 7th inning guy blowing up in mid-August.

I might add that this is also my answer to Mark Reynolds above – I think that, whatever Grabow is, that’s about what you’ll see all year for ‘10 and ’11. There’s always injury and such, but I don’t think that scouts will suddenly notice he relies on a changeup and tell hitters how to beat it.

by JRoth95 on Nov 20, 2009 4:25 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Mark Reynolds!

LOL!

(get what you mean, but its still v funny!)

by BurgherKing on Nov 20, 2009 4:28 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

You know

As I typed it, that seemed wrong, but….

Sorry, Adam Reynolds.

by JRoth95 on Nov 20, 2009 4:35 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

BTW

From what I’m seeing, FIP does not actually track ERA – looks to be maybe 1/2 run higher on average (that’s about the median among relievers, plus the 35th-best FIP is 3.23, while the 35th-best ERA is 2.74). Whatever it is, it seems clear to me that they’re not equivalent numbers. Is there a known conversion, or what?

Regardless, seems a bit disingenuous to talk about it as if they’re equivalent – Cameron sneers at Grabow’s 4.20 FIP (which, to be sure, isn’t great), but, while a 4.20 ERA is 25th percentile, as a FIP it’s 36th percentile – a big jump.

by JRoth95 on Nov 20, 2009 12:45 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

FIP

(HR*13+(BB+HBP-IBB)3-K2)/IP, plus a league-specific factor (usually around 3.2)

Source

by BurgherKing on Nov 20, 2009 12:50 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

FIP tracks RA, not ERA

Since many scoring distinctions on error-or-not-error are somewhat arbitrary, and it actually has more predictive value that way.

by Vlad on Nov 20, 2009 12:51 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Ah, that's it

Makes perfect sense.

But I plan to continue to be annoyed by usage such as Cameron’s – people who are not immersed in this stuff are going to correlate FIP numbers with ERA numbers, and thus consider (say) a 4.0 FIP pitcher as mediocre at best, when in fact he’s distinctly above average (no one would sneer at a guy with a 3.7 ERA, which is about what Grabow’s 4.2 FIP comes to).

The problem being, of course, that it’s close enough that treating it as similar to ERA isn’t obviously wrong – the best guys are around 2, the worst around 6, and it clumps around 4. But your mental gauge is calibrated to traditional ERA ranges (if you saw FIP every day, you’d adjust in a few seasons, just as we got used to “good HR power” going from 25-35 to 35-45 since the 80s). Anyway, I at least will be better attuned from now on.

by JRoth95 on Nov 20, 2009 4:17 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs