More on the Capps Non-Tender
by Charlie Wilmoth on Dec 14, 2009 6:57 PM EST
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PrintThe Matt Capps non-tender represents a busted opportunity. The reasons why may be obvious to some of you, but I'm going to spell them out anyway.
The best way by far for the Pirates to get ahead of other teams is by graduating players from the minors and employing them cheaply for several years. The best way to get those players is through the draft, but this has limits. Whenever the Pirates make a cost-cutting move at the major-league level, some fan will say, "Well, they should just spend that money on the draft anyway."
That's true, to a small degree, but for the most part it's a fallacy, for reasons outlined nicely by Matt Swartz. Draft picks are cheap relative to their actual value, and that arrangement is beneficial to small-market teams like the Bucs. If the Pirates went crazy and spent $30 million on next year's draft, picking the best available player in every round, that could be a boon for them in the short term. But the next year, a team like the Yankees that uses $30 million as toilet paper might notice what the Pirates did and spend $30 million too. And the next year, the Red Sox would do it, and then every team would, and then the Bucs would be completely hopeless, because they wouldn't be able to pay for good players in the draft.
So the Pirates are in a tough situation. It is to their advantage to be among the top teams in draft spending every year, and to Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington's eternal credit, they have been among those teams in the past two years. It is not to their advantage to go completely kamikaze and start spending $30 million in each draft. Latin America works in about the same way--the talent is cheap, and that's to the Pirates' advantage. They don't want to rock the boat to much, or they'll hurt themselves in the future.
So the Pirates' abilities to improve themselves in the draft really are limited to spending about $10 million each year and relying on their scouting department. There are no such limits on the use of resources to acquire minor leaguers in trades, though, and this is where Capps comes in. If the Bucs take Capps to arbitration, no one bats an eye, and the Pirates come out ahead if he pitches well, because a young guy who can close clearly has value on the trade market. And it's important to recognize that the financial risk here is actually quite small--Capps probably would've made around $3 million in arbitration, which isn't much, and anyway his one-year arbitration contract would not have been guaranteed. So the Bucs could have taken him to Spring Training and, if things still weren't working out after some more work with Joe Kerrigan, cut Capps for a loss of only a few hundred thousand bucks' worth of termination pay.
So the Pirates are throwing away the potential that they can trade Capps for prospects in order to save a few hundred thousand bucks. That seems like a very poor tradeoff to me, and the strong interest in Capps that other teams have expressed since his non-tender seems to bear this out. Pirates fans obviously throw out this allegation way too often, but the Capps non-tender really does seem to be an example of them being cheap. The payroll is at rock-bottom, so it isn't as if they can't afford him, and they should have tendered him because of the potential reward later if he were traded. Since the amount of damage the Pirates can do in the draft is not unlimited, it's to their advantage to keep potentially tradeable players in the hope that they can augment their draft hauls with minor leaguers acquired in trades. This time, they didn't do it, and they really should have.
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Capps best chance to be traded
was after the 2007 season.
When had his shoulder injury during the 08 season his trade value feel South. But really they didn’t have anyone qualified to replace him except Grabow.
I’m disappointed it turn out the way it did.
by BadAndy on Dec 14, 2009 7:07 PM EST via mobile reply actions
Actually...
I think it was the day before this game.
by IAPiratesFan on Dec 14, 2009 7:22 PM EST up reply actions
I’d take Dejan’s somewhat breathless account of Capps-mania sweeping MLB front offices with a grain of salt since the original source is probably the Capper’s agent trying to create a market for his client. Let’s see what he actually gets on the open market.
Check out MLBTradeRumors.com
which aggregates from lots of different sources. There may not be Capps-mania, but there is broad interest from teams that need to strengthen their bullpens. Hence the smarter move should still have been tender a contract and trade afterwards.
The one thing about all the free agent relievers floating around – many are old (i.e., over 33 years old) to really old and most appear to have very middlin’ track records of late. I would expect teams to evaluate older, middlin’ relievers as dependable, but with little upside. A young, hard-throwing reliever who had 1 to 1&1/2 bad seasons at least has the potential for a bounce-back. And that potential for future good, like stock in Enron, is what the Pirates should have been selling.
Right...
you may have noticed that the source for most (if not all) the articles linked by MLBTR is Capps’s agent, Paul Kinzer. He’s doing his best to make his client appear in demand so he tells reporters that Capps has interest from 8 or 10 or 12 teams or whatever and the reporters pass it along to meet their deadline and fill up space. “Interest” could be nothing more than an phone call from the GM to the agent inquiring on the player’s plans and salary requirements.
There’s nothing wrong with any of that, everyone’s just doing their job, and I don’t doubt that a bunch of GMs called Kinzer to inquire about Capps once he was non-tendered. Capps has some upside and he’ll pitch in the majors somewhere in 2010.
What we don’t know (yet) is who might be serious about Capps, how much they might be willing to offer him and what kind of role they might have in mind for him. All that has yet to be determined and all the stories you’ve seen so far amount to Capps’s agent hyping club’s interest in his client.
Even if it is his agent hyping...
So what? The Pirates management probably hyped the number of teams interested when we tried to trade him. Let’s say Matt got $4 million in arbitration and played half the year f/us reasonably well (mid-point between his good and bad records), then got traded for prospects to a team that perceived a need to fortify its bullpen for a play-off run. Even if we ate another $1 million of the $2 million he was due, I’d be okay with that. Yeah, the PBC saved some amount of $$ (the $3 mil spent less what we spend signing relievers) but there is a non-tangible opportunity cost in how this was handled.
by Trogluddite on Dec 14, 2009 10:39 PM EST up reply actions
Source
I’m sure Capps is getting interest. Just like the Pirates are “checking in” on Blalock and other mid-range free agents. As you suggest, that means nothing.
Also, I have zero doubt that the source is Capps’ agent. It’s his job to create a market, much like Boras had the Rangers bidding against themselves for A-Rod. My big criticism of DK is that he is too dependent on agents for tips. I had a Post-Gazette employee tell me that two years ago.
But let’s see what Capps ends up with when the process is done. And let’s see whether it was a good investment.
One of the big questions for Capps...
…is whether he’ll take more money with a team that’ll want him as a setup guy/middle reliever, or less money with a team that’ll let him close.
If..
The “rock the boat” line of thinking on draft spending is true…then all of baseball is a sham. Think about it. If true, that means the large market teams only let the small market teams play in the back yard (the draft) till they break something (start to acquire talent). At which point the Large Market teams buy up the neighborhood and make the small market teams play elsewhere. If true, then it is truly depressing..
I think it’s more that the system works well for everyone right now. Draftees are all long shots (even moreso in LA), so even the very best of them shouldn’t nec. be getting much more than they are now. In the North American draft, the ordering of things limits the upside of bidding high for talent – the very best guy in the 2nd round is only (approximately) the 31st best available amateur anyway, so there’s not much upside in giving him a $5M bonus. In LA, a team could theoretically sweep up all the best talent, but it would end up paying a big premium, because most of those kids will be complete busts.
Point being, baseball’s a conservative business. Overpaying for veteran FAs is a comfortable status quo. Overpaying for draftees would be uncomfortable innovation, and so it doesn’t happen, even if it might benefit the first team to do it. But if it did benefit that team, then they’ll simply be matched.
What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think the Pirates are leaving good bargains on the table to avoid “rocking the boat;” I think that they’re probably making sound decisions wrt draftees on the merits. BUT, given the scale of prices relative to ML payrolls, they could afford to roll the dice on draftees (whereas they can’t even play in the FA market). It’s just that the ability to afford that would be passing. Teams would start overpaying for draft talent just as they overpay for veteran FA talent now.
Where does this $3M figure come from?
JJ Putz, after getting non-tendered, signed for $3M for 2010. Why would Capps, who had a much better 2009 than Putz and is going to “choose-one” arbitration, settle for $3M?
The Trib reported this a.m. about Capps:
The Pirates, wary that he could be awarded upwards of $4 million in arbitration for 2010 and even more in 2011, chose to cut him loose.
Others have.....
suggested as much as $5 million. I don’t think Capps would have submitted that figure, so I take it with a grain of salt. However, I revert to Vlad’s comment on an earlier post, the team didn’t feel he was worth (approx.) $3.5-4 million. So why pay that amount in hopes of getting a mid-level prospect or two—and certainly expecting anything more is ridiculous no matter how well he were to pitch over the first three months of the season.
So, I guess what I’m saying is paying Capps money in hopes that he pitches well and you can trade him bascially means you are trying to buy another teams prospects. Would you allocate a couple million for one or two mid-level prospects? No chance.
Well
What is a mid-level prospect worth? Who’s a representative guy? Are we talking Gorkys? Chase D’Arnaud? What’s the range?
I guess this is the way I look at it: A first-round draft pick (beyond the first couple) is one who projects to be a ML regular, but not nec. a star – let’s say Tony Sanchez. Those guys go for an average of, what, a million? Position players in that range are about 75% likely to make the bigs, which means that that million is really $1.33 for a major league regular position player 4-6 years hence. Pitchers are more like 50% likely, which means that they’re really being signed for $2M.
Now, by the time a player reaches AA, you’ve significantly dropped the uncertainty (and I’d say that, while the player may not have been a first rounder, you’re getting towards that level of certainty, because the washouts have mostly already occurred). The other team has also done the heavy lifting wrt teaching. So now what’s that player worth? I have trouble seeing a value below $1M for a mid-level AA prospect (I’m defining “mid-level” as “near-certain to at least reach the bigs, decent chance of sticking at least briefly; unlikely to be a star”).
If Capps signs at $3.4M and they trade him at mid-season, they’re paying $1.7M for 3 months of adequate relief (if it’s inadequate then it’s a bust at $2.5M) plus a million dollar prospect. I’m not sure that’s a bad deal at all. However, I’m pulling these numbers from Dave Littlefield’s ass, so I’m perfectly willing to be convinced otherwise. Maybe I’m overestimating what a resurgent Capps could bring or how much first-rounder get, or underestimating the odds of a AA prospect busting. Tell me.
Your first round calc is a bit too optimistic
First round position players have a 50% chance of being an average everyday player. High school pitchers in the first round have a 40% chance. College pitchers have a 25% chance. (This is why the Pirates were smart to take Tony Sanchez instead of a pitcher)
I don’t see how Capps would have gotten us as much as Adam LaRoche did. Meaning, there’s probably a 30% chance that any prospect gotten would have made an impact at the MLB level. In the grand scheme of things, it’s probably not that significant.
The only significant thing that may or may not happen is if Capps does come back and re-finds his once dominant fastball. If that happens, any piece gained in a trade would probably pale in comparison and still make the deal look terrible. Similarly, if Capps is washed up, nobody is going to remember.
by MarkInDallas on Dec 14, 2009 10:52 PM EST up reply actions
Thanks
I was transposing the info for prospects (per this piece) with the odds for draftees. Anyway, that only reinforces my argument that a decent AA player has more cash value than dtoddwin suggests.
I’m not sure you’re right about Adam vs. Matt because the money is so different – LaRoche’s money was about double Capps’, and I think that, by the time he was traded, Adam’s rep as a bad 1st half hitter was cemented, whereas Capps’ rep as ineffective is only lightly attached (I honestly think that, with just 1 good month, Capps’ value returns to where it was post-2008 – people will largely forget 2009, and treat him as a young, solid reliever with some flaws).
The fact Adam was seen as a 2nd half monster was the only reason we got anything for him in the last year of his deal. Boston was banking on him being able to provide a push for the playoffs. You can bet that if Capps had real value, that the deal would have been done already. No one would be scared off by a non-tender threat if the player had real value. Notice how Milwaukee had no trouble trading JJ Hardy. They had several offers to choose from. They decided that Carlos Gomez (3.2 WAR in 3 yrs) was worth more than Matt Capps (2.6 WAR in 4 yrs).
The only explanation that Capps could not be traded is that teams just didn’t value him so highly that they thought they would have a lot of competition if he did go on the open market. Therefore the return we would have received for him is certainly negligible.
by MarkInDallas on Dec 15, 2009 12:10 PM EST up reply actions
I'm pretty comfortable......
suggesting that the value of a AA, C grade prospect, which is certainly the most likely return for a guy like Capps who pitches reasonably well this year and will be entering another year of arbirtration after gettting $3.5-4 million this year, is not more than $1.5 million.
The general premise that the “sign Capps and trade him” camp has is flawed. If he makes $3.5-4 million this year and pitches reasonably welll, then his is going to make $6 million next year in arbitration. The acquiring team is highly unlikely to give up a good prospect for Capps and the right to pay him $6 million the following year. And if they plan to non-tender him, they are also unlikely to give up a good prospect.
Why do we want to buy an average prospect for $1-2 million or take the risk of Capps pitching poorly again and eating $3-4 million? I really don’t understand the logic behind this from a GM’s perspective. It isn’t good business.
what else is going to be done with the money if it isn't spent
There is no hard evidence that it will be spent to improve the baseball product now or down the road?
Good day.
There's
also no “hard evidence” against it being spent to improve the baseball product now or down the road. I’m not saying it will be, but I am saying that’s a useless argument given the circumstances (We have little to no idea how money is spent by the Pirates outside payroll, the draft, and international signings).
And given that we now have just Meek, Hanrahan, and possibly Stephen Jackson for the bullpen, the 3-4 million could possibly be spent on two relievers that would add about the same value as Capps would have (one can hope).
Whilst I agree with your suggestion that Capps is easily replacable...
the idea that there is no reason to doubt the team’s willingness and/or ability to make an appropriate financial commitment to sustaining legitimate title contender at the big league level is absurd.
Short of the Nutting committing business suicide by announcing that winning is of no importance to him, what would you consider “hard evidence”?
Good day.
Hard Evidence
Is hard evidence, like seeing the Pirates books, which won’t happen. The best we can do is the most recent two part PG article that surmises that the Pirates (including Nutting) are not making astronomical profits, and also have quite a large amount of debt to pay off.
I also have a bit of a problem with calling Nutting cheap, as I think that’s lumping him in with Kevin McClatchy and the way he ran the team for 14 years.
Also, I think the whole notion that a team like the Pirates can field a winner by just spending at the ML level is one that has been proven false. The current FO has been in charge for 2+ years and obviously has yet to “sustain a legitimate contender at the big league level” therefore I don’t think it’s fair to say that if/when they ever reach that goal that they won’t spend to get there or keep it there.
by Maxwell.C on Dec 15, 2009 10:44 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
There are only 2 examples of on-field success in "opening the wallet" to field a winning team
The first Marlins championship and the Diamondbacks WS win. Both time the team had to be dismantled immediately afterward and the Diamondbacks owner lost the team because of “fiduciary recklessness”.
On the other hand, there are multiple examples of small and mid market teams who have put together winning teams by lower payroll and concentrating on home grown talent which then raised attendance to the point of sustaining much higher payrolls.
We do have hard evidence that the Pirates spend proportionally to what other teams spend on payroll. I’ve done a study on attendance and market size and how that correlates to MLB payroll. I am absolutely convinced the Pirates have spent actually more money on MLB payroll proportional to their revenues than most other teams in their circumstances.
The only team that spends more proportionally among revenue sharing recipients is the Royals.
by MarkInDallas on Dec 15, 2009 12:24 PM EST up reply actions
I don't think
that refusing to pay $3m+ to a glorified middle reliever should count as “cheap.” And the argument that they could have signed him and then traded him is the same frustrating one that people always make when suggesting that the Bucs sign some Ankiel or whoever as a free agent. Yeah, maybe they play well and you get a couple prospects for them. Maybe not. It’s not a sure thing, and smart teams don’t overpay players with the expectation that there will be a market for them in the future. If Capps wasn’t tradeable before the non-tender deadline, there’s no reason to suspect he will be in the future.
Furthermore, there are very few situations in which you should tender a player a contract with the expectation of cutting him in spring training. Three weeks of spring training should rarely change your mind about a player’s worth. If they chose to cut Capps in spring training, you could write this exact same post, except that the Pirates would have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. At some point, you just have to admit a sunk opportunity cost and move on.
Now, obviously the Pirates missed an opportunity by not trading Capps before his value plummeted, but it does not make sense to compound that failure by throwing 3 million dollars at it in the hopes that it’s recoverable.
If Capps wasn’t tradeable before the non-tender deadline
NH insists that this is only because word got out that he’d be non-tendered. You’d have to be pretty dumb to trade a player for a guy you know you’ll be able to negotiate with directly in 3 days.
Yeah...
But the interesting thing about the whole thing is that any team could have had Capps for just about any mid-tier prospect while also controlling him for two years of arbitration. Yet now they have to bid against other teams for his services.
We will have to wait until he gets a contract, but if a 30-year old Brandon Lyons is getting 3/15 with his 4.23 career FIP, what will a 26 year-old Matt Capps get with a career 3.84 FIP get? Yes, Lyons is coming off a lucky/good season while Capps is coming off an unlucky/bad season, and Ed Wade has already given out his two monstrous contracts to RP, but I have to imagine someone will pay Capps well over what he might have made during his last two seasons of arbitration. And a team that loses out on him will regret they didn’t make the trade with the Pirates when they could.
What does this say about the Pirates? Most will think they’re idiots, but until Capps proves it with his play, all it can be added up to is a lost opportunity to trade him when his value was high. And IMO, there’s worse mistakes a GM can make.
Agreed, but ...
You get the player immediately. Maybe you save yourself a B-level prospect. But isn’t it nice to have the player instead of competing with 10 other teams?
Maybe all ten teams thought...
…they were the only ones who’d be interested in him.
Hard to say, really, without knowing more than we do.
Exactly
And who is going to pay much if they think no one else is going to be interested?
by MarkInDallas on Dec 15, 2009 12:26 PM EST up reply actions
You are missing the point
Salary issues aside, the Pirates are giving away 3 years of control of a potential asset; and they are giving it away for nothing but rather nominal cash savings.
Tim has an excellent post on the topic at his BuccoFans blog.
Good day.
It's not just three years of control, though.
It’s three years of control at salaries of $3M+ this year, plus equal or greater amounts in the subsequent seasons.
Years of control are like stock options. You have the option to buy or not buy at a certain price. If the value of the stock is higher than the buy-in, it’s a good deal, and the option has value. If the value of the stock is lower than the buy-in, then the option is worthless.
If the team doesn’t think Capps is worth the buy-in (rightly or wrongly), then those years of control are worthless to them.
Vlad
the key argument is, could we have signed and traded him?
Most not in favor of the non-tender are not saying we should have held on to Capps, rather that we should have gotten something back for him. So, we make a $3M investment for a year, in a year when we have a lot of payroll flexibility, and hope that we can move him before the season starts, or that he has a good start, and we can ship him off early in the season. Sure, if the present analysis is correct, that might be a waste. So we lose $3M in a year when it doesn’t matter, and take a chance, and it doesn’t work out. Fine! It’s not a huge loss.
It's a lot easier to shrug your shoulders and write off $3M...
…when the $3M is coming out of someone else’s pocket.
If they think that Capps isn’t going to be worth $3M, and they think they can use that $3M to sign other players who have more value (which appears to be their position at the moment), then they should let Capps go and sign the other players instead.
We’ll see whether they were right or not.
The second part of your argument only applies if they approach $45M in total payroll. Otherwise, the money not spent on Capps is irrelevant.
No, it's not.
There are only a certain number of high-leverage spots in a bullpen. So if they sign Capps to fill those high-leverage innings, there’s no way for them to get back sufficient return on a multi-million-dollar contract for another reliever if that reliever’s going to be pitching mid- or low-leverage innings.
I see your point
I wasn’t thinking in those terms because I don’t really believe that the Pirates will pay any relievers $3+M in 2010. But, certainly, paying Capps that kind of money pretty much precludes paying anyone else that kind of money (esp. with Meeks & Hanrahan on board, both of which look likely to see a lot of high-leverage innings).
My Wife
…who is a budding baseball fan with loads of wisdom, said:
Capps, Matt Capps! No big loss, he sucks, he really sucks…
I trust her judgement
I agree with Charlie’s point.
I guess the only positive I see from this move is that the Pirates (appear to) have assigned a value to players and will not overspend. I also like the the front office continues to make moves without appearing to care how it will be perceived by the general public (Pirates being cheap again came up in a Ron Cook article). Of course they’re also lucky that more people are concerned about the Steelers tanking right now.
I made most of my life decisions at a Foghat concert... I stand by them.
by Chester J Lampwick on Dec 14, 2009 10:08 PM EST reply actions
maybe...
…Capps had value as a decent pitcher with a history of good control and velo who was only 26. I appreciate the theory of what is more valuable, but I think it’s simpler than that. I know it’s simpler than that if he was only going to ask for 3.4m. I realize you might not choose to pay that for Capps, all other things being equal, but all other things are not equal. It’s not a huge raise; he’s a decent bet to pitch as well as some guys making 3.4m; he might take less than that; pay him, or at least negotiate. I’m wondering if the 3.4m number wasn’t accurate.
But anyway, while all players have to be treated like assets, Capps had a lot of value as someone who could pitch well, quite possibly. Maybe we ought to just look at that.
This is probably just a different way to make the same point Charlie made, but it is a slightly easier path.
Also not to quibble but the Yanks or the Red Sox or whomever will outspend the Pirates or the draft the very first second it occurs to them to be a worthwhile endeavour. Boston figured out Moneyball, they can figure this out. There may be many reasons to keep draft spending sane but to avoid giving the Yankees ideas isn’t one of them.
Bingo
I’ve been harping for over a year that the new management has not yet substantiated that they are willing/able to spend. Although I haven’t thought much of Capps since his sophomore season, the only feasible explanation is that the Pirates were not worried about value in this move so much as they were worried about money.
I’m all for value, but the money at issue here is – or should have been – inconsequential.
I’m not giving up on the new regime because the substantial majority of their accomplishments have been logical, but this one is disheartening. It’s been a pretty brutal last couple of weeks for Pittsburgh sports teams.
Good day.
Good day.
pirates in general
it doesnt have anything to do with a small market team on how much they spend on players. It has to do with good scouts who can judge talent and for the last 18yrs or so they done a bad job of it!!
Much of the chatter on BD advocates for an evidence based approach towards building talent. The Pirates front office has determined that most relievers are inconsistent from year to year and not worth significant investment. In the case of Capps, there are other red flags to support a conservative approach, especially given his recent performance, questionable conditioning, and injury history.
Whether this theory has merit and becomes validated is open to interpretation. But it’s the right approach to use metrics to support a reasonable hypothesis. The Pirates will get ripped for being cheap no matter what they do, but signing Capps would have been a status quo move with minimal upside.
you may be right
but the fact remains there was the possibility of some upside there, which now does not exist. Capps had value, and I think we’ll see teams willing to pay $3M or more to get him. If it was indeed the case that a team would not have paid 3M$ to get him, but would have paid 2.5M, then the pirates should have paid the remaining 0.5M.
They might be saving money now, but they would still not spend any extraordinarily large amount in that scenario, and most importantly, they have the payroll flexibility to spend some right now, because the payroll is not stretched to the limit, as it might have been if the Pirates were in contention. In that scenario, such a move might be justified, but in the present scenario, its not. You may agree with it, but the fact remains that the Pirates passed up the opportunity to get something in return for a reliever/closer who still has value on the market.
by BurgherKing on Dec 14, 2009 11:08 PM EST up reply actions
perhaps more fundamentally....
…although NH might be right about spending big on the bullpen — i.e., that it’s inefficient — until the rest of baseball figures that out and starts starving relievers, he’s going to have to spend money to have a bullpen that’s any good. EIther that or get real lucky. NH has not yet shown any skill or luck in his buy low theory of acqring bullpen help. He might just have to pay for it at some point.
One big problem with this decision...
… and a problem the PBC has constantly had under Littlefield Lite (sorry, NH) – is message and expectation management. Even good decisions, if not packaged properly, can harm a business. And bad decisions are further aggravating when packaged improperly. They can gut a business/organization even if it is going in the right direction overall. (Quick, how many of you were thrilled with the Army when you found out that Pat Tillman was killed in a friendly fire incident and we covered it up?)
The Pirates ball club still has to convince local fans (not us in the diaspora) that they are committed to winning and not just squeezing $$ from the local suckers. Regardless of how poorly the Mad Capper pitched last year, he was young and a perceived foundation stone to build on to the winning season. I seem to remember Littlefield Lite preachin’ that storyline. Cutting him loose over a measly $4 mil, with no apparent plan in place other than to hire cheap labor and see what sticks, sends the wrong message. Starting the morning after the non-tender deadline without a strong message about why Capps was cut and without some move in the opposite direction makes management look rudderless. Again, the angry Pittsburgh mob that demands protests and burning Pirates memorabilia may not be doing their technical analysis correctly, but they are the folks that have to be excited about spending their money to go to PNC Park.
When ML team's win...
they convince. And the convinced buy tickets and jerseys. No amount of PR and Fireworks can make up that difference, just ask Dave Littlefield.
Also, unless you can provide a link, I doubt NH put Matt Capps in the cornerstone category, and even then, that’s not exactly high praise from the current FO (Nate McLouth was a cornerstone). Personally I don’t have a problem with NH saying (and lying) “this is the group we want, and will go forward with” because he is obligated to say it and those who follow the team logically know that’s not the truth.
Don’t really get the Pat Tillman reference either. Comparing the country lying to the public over a death of a hero to promote a war is not exactly Huntington cutting Matt Capps and then justifying it in what I thought was a reasonable statement of we tried to trade him, but there was no interest after the leak, and therefore didn’t think he was worth a tender. But that’s just me
Don't disagree 'bout the winning part of it...
…and was not suggesting more bread and circuses. Just pointing out that organizations can and do lose the information operation side of things. I do believe, without digging through a lot of articles, that Capps has been mentioned in the same breath as Doumit and Duke and McLouth as players we were building around. My point was, if the current management makes lots of smart baseball decisions, but drives away more of the fan base by not explaining the decisions/managing the information cycles, will they accomplish what they want to do – build winning baseball supported by the P’burgh community?
by Trogluddite on Dec 15, 2009 10:04 PM EST up reply actions
Capps is probably shot and the Pirates brass knows it
What people are not realizing is the following:
1) Huntington knows better about not losing a trade opportunity, so it MUST BE the story that he floated about differences in arbitration amounts is just him being “shrewd” or “nice” but not telling the real truth which is:
2) Capps is shot. He has major arm problems that are getting worse. Therefore, the Pirates did not want to sign him only to see his arm blow out in Spring Training and be on the hook for money. Its evident that:
3) Capps bad performances last year were due to arm problems. Jim Tracy overused him, and it showed up last year. The only outs Capps got were of the 419 foot fly ball on the warning track variety. Even in games he saved, Capps gave up one or two hits per inning.
Good job Neil, but you should have cut him in the middle of last year, we would have won more games!
I blame the team for not trading Capps earlier, but not really for letting him go now. The Pirates could just as easily trade Japanese reliever(s) bought with Capps money and get the same return as what they would have gotten with a healthy MC.
Would I have tendered him? I don;t know, because I don’t have as much access to health information as the team.
What does the bullpen look like next year? Meek, Hanrahan, Hart, Jakubauskas, Jackson, Chulk, and one more guy we have yet to sign most likely. Maybe Jean Machi is an option. How bad is that really? This strikes me as below average, but not worst in the league or catastrophically bad. Capps would just make it worse IMO.
We've hardly begun to sign NRIs.
I’d bet that three of the relievers that start next year in our pen haven’t even been signed yet.
I agree that there are dozens of fish in the sea as far as just minor league free agents.
by Adam Reynolds on Dec 15, 2009 9:27 AM EST up reply actions
The Fact
…that we have obvious openings in the bullpen should attract a bevy of candidates. Those who belive they belong in the majors will come looking for a chance just as Bobby Crosby did.
You make it sound like “Field Of Dreams.” ;-)
by Traco Bucco on Dec 15, 2009 12:09 PM EST up reply actions
I Believe in NH
I know all of the losing makes us ready to assume that the FO is a bunch of idiots. But it is time to let that go. I have agreed (and seen him be proven out) almost all of NH’s moves so far. Not all have given us super stars but most have increased the talent level.
So if NH thinks Capps is not worth what he is willing to pay him, then I think he knows something we don’t. Capps may have an injury, he may have pasted his peak, or something else. But let’s give NH some credit that so far he has done a pretty good job rebuilding the team.
As for signing him and trying to trade him. If he was tradeable for something worthwhile, NH would have done it. So we would have signed him and paid him to stink up the joint? Paid him to blow more saves? Heck, he lost 8 games in relief last year!
We know Mario Rivera and he is no Mario Rivera! He was almost as bad as Brad Lidge. Would we pay Lidge $3-$4M to close for us? I don’t think so! The only thing Capps has is that he is 26 and in 2008 he was decent.
So stop whining about losing a 2nd rate bullpen guy!
sounds like you are saying his past moves have been good, so lets give him the benefit of doubt on this one, which is clearly not the way to judge moves. NH has made a number of good moves, but that doesn’t justify “bad” ones (if this turns out bad).
No one’s asking for Rivera, and if we had Rivera, trading him would be a good idea. We wouldn’t pay Lidge, but clearly some teams would, and have- we’ll see if someone will pay $3M for Capps. NH’s job is to find those teams and work out a trade so he can get something back for a piece that had value.
I am not saying Capps is great, nor am I saying we should have intended to make him a cornerstone. I m just saying we should have done a better job getting something back for him, 2nd rate or not, because many clubs would view him as an asset, and we needed to have taken advantage of the market.
A team needs to be willing to pay more than $3M for Capps...
…for a trade to make sense for them. Specifically, they need to see the value of Capps as being greater than or equal to the value of Capps’s arb award PLUS the value of whatever they’re trading to get him.
and you feel it wasn’t worth the shot to see if someone would do it?
when the payroll is about $32 M, and far from the edge? Potentially, we could have sweetened the deal by adding say 1M (thanks to payroll space?)
I already said that I probably would've bit the bullet and tendered him.
But it’s easy for me to do that, because I don’t have any payroll restrictions in place, and it’s not my boss’s $3M that’ll be going down the tubes if Capps craps out.
I don’t think that tendering Capps was necessarily the wrong play. There’s a justifiable case for it at this point, and the correctness or the incorrectness of the call will be difficult for us to determine until we know exactly who they sign to replace Capps, and how much they end up paying him (or them).
Also:
In general, signing players in the expectation of flipping them for future return is a very poor strategy.
And we should know,
because Dave Littlefield used such a strategy constantly.
Formerly known as Econolodge
fair enough
i know u r not bound, we are all playing fantasy gms here, so…
i just happen to side with tendering Capps was the right play.
by BurgherKing on Dec 15, 2009 11:25 AM EST up reply actions
Not Justifying Bad Moves-Just Trusting More
I am saying that I am willing to give him some slack on this one because other moves that we thought did not make sense at the time seemed to turn out OK when we learned the full facts and time had gone by. Look at the Nate deal. I think this has turned out to be an obvious win for us. Also the Nyjer deal. Plus the whole Bay/Nady/Marte deals worked out good for us. Lastly, the Freddie and Jack deals don’t look bad to me.
So I am saying that US complaining the WE could have gotten something for Capps during the trading or after a sign/trade is based on what? WE don’t know what other teams offered (if anything). Sure getting something is better than getting nothing but what if it turns out that Capps gets no good offers and retunrs to the Bucs for less $s? Then NH is lookin’ good. This is the same gamble that the Yankees did/are doing with Pettit and Damon. Maybe NH knows something about the market that WE don’t know right now.
first off, when i said WE, I didn’t mean the commenters at BD, I meant the Pirates.
secondly, most of his previous deals were fine, looked fine at the time, and i dont have any problems with them. Don’t know what you mean when you say some deals turned out OK when we learned the full facts. And the Bay deal hasn’t gone that well, but it seemed fine at the time, and I m fine with it.
If Capps gets no good offers and returns to the Bucs for less money, then NH’s a genius- I grant that.
At this point, my only issue is that we had an opportunity to get something back, but let Capps walk for nothing, as Charlie pointed out, and thats all it is.
by BurgherKing on Dec 15, 2009 11:22 AM EST up reply actions
Let’s also consider that Capps’ average Fangraphs value over the past 4 years (based on FIP) is $2.625 mil per year. That includes the 3 healthy seasons. Now we’re supposed to be up in arms that the Bucs didn’t want to give him $3.5 or whatever coming off his worst season? Unbelievable that such a big deal is made out of this perfectly fine decision, IMO.
If he were to pitch at $2.625 level, someone would trade for him. His trade value is low because he’s coming off a -$1.8M season, not because his average season is only about half a WAR. As has been mentioned dozens of times, teams that need relief help overpay for relievers – and paying $3.4M + a AA prospect for a player who’s typically been worth $2.6M and as much as $6.6M is hardly overpaying at all.
The Pirates can also pay another reliever or two $3.5 and trade them at the deadline if that’s a better bet than overpaying Capps and praying for the best (Now if they don’t make any quality upgrades then even I will criticize the team). It’s a tough choice to tender or not, but to me the one-sided negative reaction even here is surprising.
by Adam Reynolds on Dec 15, 2009 10:30 AM EST up reply actions
you can say many things about the reaction here
but one-sided its not!
by BurgherKing on Dec 15, 2009 11:27 AM EST up reply actions
Indeed
Just look at Vlad – he has said he’d have tendered, yet he’s thrown up plenty of counter-arguments. He’s a one-man, two-sided argument (not a knock, at all).
Heh, thanks.
I just felt like somebody should hold up the other side of the argument, and while I didn’t agree with it, I could at least understand and sympathize with it somewhat.
This has been a pretty good/fun discussion.
Don't forget the additional year of control
which you don’t get by signing a FA to a 1 year, $3.5M contract.
Also bear in mind that the premise here is that Capps is at a low point for his value – as I said, he’s been worth nearly $7M in the past. If Capps rebounds in ’10, then the trading team gets a reliever at decent value plus another year of control; depending on the rebound, that extra year may be good value even with an arbitration raise.
I think that if this were Capps’ last year under club control, there’d be a lot less negativity to the move (because half a season of a reliever on a fair but not great contract doesn’t net much return at all).
Right...
but what are the odds of Capps recovering and pitching at a $2.625 level versus continuing at last year’s level of -$1.8M? That is the tradeoff the team was weighing when it decided not to tender him. If we knew he was going to have a decent year in 2010, it would’ve been an easy decision to offer arb, but there’s a significant risk the he goes out serves up meatball after meatball just like he did last year.
Mmmmmmm meatballs ...
Hey, look, it’s almost lunchtime.
And I don’t understand this “Capps nontendered” thing. He looked real tender around the gut pretty much all last year.
/ba-dum
Zing!
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Dec 15, 2009 11:12 PM EST up reply actions
Bright side in all this
is that Russell will now be forced to evaluate the rest of his pen and see who has closer stuff, rather than just running Capps out there to get blasted all the time when he had other options available. If we brought Capps back, what would we learn about Hanrahan, Meek etc.? Nothing. Because J.R. picks a closer in spring training and lets no evidence that his closer is fat and ineffective dissuade him.
I do admire that the team is willing to put an internal value on these guys and stick to it. It is absolutely the right way to run a small market team. If you spend too lavishly for mediocrity on too many players, maybe overpaying $1 mil for John Grabow, $2 million for Brandon Lyon, $3 mil for someone like Jeff Suppan, pretty soon you’re dealing with real money! Better to be firm about not inching up the money too much for bad values, and just cut ’em and find good values.
I’ll probably hate it when they declare that McCutchen wants $2 or 3 million more than the team values him, but for someone like Capps this seems like the best way for NH and co. to do business.
Decision Making......
First, let me say if the Pirates 100% knew they weren’t going to tender him toward the end of the season, they should have traded him then. I don’t think anyone can argue that point. So, let’s get to the point ten days ago where it is rumored they may non-tender him and therefore no GM is willing to give up anything of value for the right to negotiate or go to arbitration with Capps.
Many have argued that the Pirates should have signed him this year in hopes that he bounces back and then traded him during or after the coming season.
Here is why I think that argument is seriously flawed from a baseball perspective. It’s generally accepted that if Capps goes to arbitration this year he stands to make $3.5-4 million. Say the Pirates kept him at that price. The outcomes at that point become:
1.) Capps does bounce back and pitches reasonably well. The Pirates look to trade him at the deadline or after the season. At that point Capps probably brings back a C level prospect. The reason is, anyone trading for him will have to go to arbitration with him after the season and risk paying him roughly $6 million if he had the reasonable season that we are assuming. Moreover, if their plan is to non-tender him they aren’t going to want to give up much. So, in this scenario, the Pirates are paying $2-4 million (depending on the timing of the trade) for a mid-level prospect. From a baseball perspective this is a terrible decision as a team is highly unlikely to pay that amount for that type of player or even one with a slightly higher grade. Thinking we would get something more in return is fallacy in my view.
2.) Capps doesn’t pitch well. Then the Pirates have blown $3.5-4 million. The argument that “they can afford it,” is ridiculous. Business and baseball decisions should be made on their merits. The Pirates either believe he is worth that amount or he isn’t. In this case they decided he isn’t, so you don’t pay it to him because there is money in the budget. Now they may be proven wrong on this point, but that will be evaluated in hindsight.
So, I really don’t understand why many fans are so blind to this. The fanbase generally killed Capps all year (I’m acutely aware because I was defending him being used) and now they feel like we let a great asset walk away. People aren’t thinking through all the issues in my opinion, just that a player left for nothing.
First of all, we have an arbitration number – Capps was going to ask $3.4M, so that’s the ceiling. There was the incorrect report about $5M, but let’s stick to what we know.
For Capps to jump from $3.4M to $6M, he would have to pitch better than “reasonably well”; he’d have to pitch better than all but a handful of players in all of baseball. Arbitration can be, well, arbitrary, but they don’t give out big-time paydays to guys with career lines that look like 3.8, 2.3, 3.0, 5.9, and (let’s say) 4.5.
So the only way he’s seeing $6M is if he pitches quite well in ‘10, which means A. we’ve gotten great value for the half-season we own him, and B. the trading team will be anticipating great value for their half-season, and won’t be scared off by the arbitration payday (and will probably be thinking extension).
So pick your case: will he net a poor return because he’s not pitching well or because he’s pricey? You don’t get to argue that he’s both.
How do you know......
the number is $3.4? There is no number. They didn’t go to arbitration. Nothing was submitted. Player and agent can say whatever they like. Their is no “ceiling” and we can’t stick to what we know because it isn’t knowable. Do you really think those numbers don’t change all the time until they are submitted?
Second, I don’t think $3.4 is much different than $3.5 – 4 million. So, you’re splitting hairs. I didn’t think going from $4 million to $6 million the following year was a great leap. I don’t have past cases in front of me, but I’ll try to track some down to see whether that is right or wrong. But, $ 2.5 this year to $3.75 next would be a 50% increase and he wasn’t good—even $3.4 would be about a 40% increase. Assuming that it would go to $5 the next with equally bad performance is not a stretch based on past history I think. But, again I’ll do some research on cases. Anyone who can fill in the blanks, feel free.
I was about to respond to JRoth’s post about the 3.4 number when I noticed you already addressed it. I’ve been wondering for a while why I haven’t seen anyone question the fact that no one called Capps and his agent out for citing that particular figure.
There is no telling what kind of numbers were tossed around during the contract negotiations, nor the level of threats (we’re asking for 5 mil and with 27 saves he’ll get it) or ultimatums (it’s 2.75, take it or leave it) .
In the end I’m just happy that I don’t have to get that knot in my stomach when the Mad Capper is coming to the mound in the 9th with a lead. Now I get to have a knot in my stomach every time Hanny or Meek or ???? comes to the mound in the 9th. Happy days indeed.
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