Pull Yourself Together in Pittsburgh
by Charlie Wilmoth on Dec 3, 2009 3:07 AM EST
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PrintIs it just me, or do the numerous reports of the Pirates pursuing injured or damaged-goods players remind anyone of the 2002-2003 offseason, when Dave Littlefield grabbed Reggie Sanders, Matt Stairs, Kenny Lofton and Jeff Suppan on the cheap? Frank Coonelly is explicitly making the argument that Rick Ankiel should sign with the Bucs as a way to get some playing time to get his career back on track. Littlefield did about the same thing prior to 2003, when the market was incredibly unfavorable to players and, as I recall, several of the guys Littlefield acquired couldn't find anyone to give them a big-league contract even though they weren't that bad the previous year. Sanders, for example, played decently for the Giants in 2002, but he couldn't get more than a million bucks elsewhere, so he signed with the Pirates and used a great 2003 performance as a springboard for a $6 million contract with the Cardinals.
Of course, Littlefield tried to do about the same thing in 2003-2004, but it didn't work because the market had normalized. That's how the Bucs got stuck with Raul Mondesi. But what he did prior to 2003 was one of the few smart things he ever did. It seems like Coonelly is trying to do the same thing, albeit with risky players rather than with a depressed market. Play here, he seems to be saying, and you can create a path to a bigger paycheck somewhere else.
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$12M as opposed to $280M
I find it interesting that the union settled for $12M that had apparently already been earmarked for the players when the last time collusion had been proven they got $280M. Either there wasn’t much of a case and the union took what they could get or Fehr didn’t feel like fighting a this battle so close to retirement.
After the cops catch you once or twice...
…you learn how to stop leaving fingerprints all over the place.
I have no problem
with such a strategy. Such players don’t have to be terrific to recoup the investment, just good enough to flip for a real prospect or two at the deadline. Seriously, we’re still two-three years from any realistic shot at contention anyway, and until we’re in a race, buy low-sell high applies.
Look
How else are the Pirates going to bring in players? You cannot sell them on the fact that they will stay here long or that were a contender, might as well sign low price-high reward type guys in hope that they perform well. If we add another 3-4 top prospects over the course of next season through trades then i will be happy with that over whether or not the team wins say 70 games? Cutch and Alvarez cant win a divison on their own, still need more players!
Course...
you mention 2 players that weren’t traded for…Cutch and Alvarez. They’ve traded for 20+ players. It would be nice to see a few become stars…we see “former top prospects” (LaRoche, Clement, Hansen, Morton, Milledge, Tabata, just to name a few) acquired in trades…and find out why “former” applies in most cases. We can flip players for the next 20 years…but that doesn’t NECESSARILY equate to winning. If the draft doesn’t produce…and we keep flipping players…well…that streak’s gonna get a whole lot longer.
True
If you don’t draft well, then nothing will go well. But if you do…then there’s a good chance. Imagine what the Pirates of 2007 could have been if the team had drafted a superstar on its own own to complement the players received in trades? We had McLouth and Doumit, and that’s it of the position players that were developed by the Pirates. Not one good infield amateur was drafted or signed since Aramis Ramirez. And that was pretty much it in 15 years. Bad drafting choices on first round pitchers – those are the riskiest signings you can make.
by MarkInDallas on Dec 3, 2009 12:27 PM EST up reply actions
Like Ohlendorf’s thesis said, the draft is the most important, and I think the Pirates have been doing pretty well in that regard since Huntington took over.
Of the players you named, Tabata is still a great prospect and was one of the best in the Yankees system even at the time of the trade. (Behind Hughes and Kennedy, both of whom were deemed untouchable and have done little to impress me since.)
A little more power and I’ll be ecstatic with Milledge (and that power will probably come as he recovers from his injuries and shakes off the rust.) Morton is a project, but I’m high on him. I think Hansen may have been fine, but he had a condition we didn’t find out about until a year after he joined the team. It’s not his fault not Neal Huntington’s that he may never play again.
LaRoche turned in a perfectly average season in his first full year as a starter and went on a power tear near the end. He’s still young and with room for improvement. We’ll have to wait and see on Clement.
You don’t build an organization purely through trades and free agency, of course. But you don’t build purely through the draft, either. There’s absolutely no harm in getting cheap free agents and flipping them to stock the farm system a little more.
http://fanhuddle.com/pittsburghpirates
I did a little study of how likely it was you could replenish a whole roster every 5 years.
I decided it was possible to draft an entire team every 10 years, which means there are several things a small market can do to avoid market priced free agents.
1) Trade approaching free agents with 1+ year to go in the contract.
2) Extend team control from 6 years to 6 years 4 months by bringing up prospects mid season. This gives you 5 full years of control per player before trade.
3) Buy out 2-3 years of free agency service time ahead of time.
4) Prospects received in trades from #1 should comprise about half your roster – can be less depending on how successful you are at #3.
I never said the strategy was bad. In fact, I implied that it was good.
by Charlie Wilmoth on Dec 3, 2009 3:51 PM EST up reply actions
Playing time...
in order to rebuild value. This has been the mantra going back to 2002. It’s not a bad theme for a team in Pittsburgh’s position who doesn’t want a FA to stick around long term anyway. I don’t expect any of these guys to be signed soon as NH will let the market play out. However, if we sign a Nady or Ankiel it will surely be at the expense of a Clement of Jones. I would like to see Clement and Pearce man 1B for a while next year so I really don’t want them signing an OF or 1B unless it is a significant upgrade. Nady does nothing form me unless we bring him in as a platoon player. And while Ankiel brings nice defense and potential for some power I don’t have a lot of faith in him. I have no evidence but I think he was a PED beneficiary. I remember him being linked to HGH at one point but I could be wrong.
Ankiel's HGH use
was only during his recovery from TJ surgery, which was when he was still a pitcher. HGH was not a banned substance at the time and he had a doctor’s prescription. HGH has been anecdotally shown to spur growth of tendon tissue, although no studies have been done that would warrant an official usage for that. After 1 year, he didn’t refill the prescription, then a year later decided to become a hitter. So, there’s no correlation between his power and HGH use.
His use wasn’t discovered until years later when his records were found in an investigation into that particular pharmacy. So there’s no reason to believe it did not happen exactly as he explained it.
by MarkInDallas on Dec 3, 2009 12:49 PM EST up reply actions
I would want Nady back
never.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Dec 3, 2009 12:58 PM EST up reply actions
My question on Nady
The most important time we’re going to want either Ankiel or Nady for is the beginning of the season. Who knows whether Nady will be able to throw hard hard enough in April to play right field?
I would be on board with Ankiel, though.
dont want Nady
we got the best out of X, and there’s little to be gained now- we are not going to get another Tabata or Ohlendorf out of Nady, and there’s little use in having him block Clement or even Moss…
I am not sure I totally understand Ankiel either in that regard, except that he might be the most inclined to accept a backup role, while not being a total washout- plus he has the ability to play CF, and spell Cutch…
I think Ankiel has a durability issue
due to the way he plays the field which will limit his playing time. It reminds me of Rusty Greer, whose style of recklessly running into walls cut his career short. However, I think Ankiel could be a good incentive option for Tabata and Clement to produce and not to think they will automatically be given a job.
I kinda doubt Nady would come back to Pittsburgh.
Somebody help me with my memory here — It used to be the rule that if you traded a player in the first year of a multiyear contract, he could demand that his new team trade him after that season. They junked that rule, right?
I will be surprised if any of the players the Pirates might sign get multi-year contracts. Seems unlikely.
Some of Dejan’s posts lately strongly imply as much. I was curious, though, because it’s going to come up a lot in discussions.
by WTM on Dec 3, 2009 4:57 PM EST up reply actions
i think it depends on the player. i wouldn’t look for a reliever getting that sort of deal but if a position player or starter happened to fit their needs and that’s what it took to get the deal done, i could see a 2-3 year deal. not a big contract like $10 mil a year, but if they were able to get a player at a position like shortstop, with no internal options imminent in the next few years (d’arnaud is the best bet, but he’s not even cleared the AA hurdle) i could see them doing a deal like 2/12 or 3/15.
If the player is a shortstop like Crosby, then yes.
I think the Pirates might offer him a 2 year deal with an option year. This because they’ve got no options in the minors before possibly d’Arnaud.
But for Ankiel, I have a hard time seeing where they would want to risk a 2-3 year deal. First, at the price they are likely willing to pay, Ankiel is not going to want to lock himself into several years because he wants to raise his value for a big payday. At the price Ankiel would accept a multi-year deal to hedge his bets on not performing well or getting injured, the Pirates would not want to risk throwing away that money.
It’s possible that they could do a one year deal at a low amount, then 1 or 2 player/club option years at higher amounts which would prove beneficial to both parties. If Ankiel performed well, the Pirates could trade him to a contender willing to take on the option years or use it as a way to negotiate an extension like the Giants did with Freddy. If he did not, then Ankiel would be free to cut another deal to raise his value again the next year.
If you're thinking of the same rule I'm thinking of...
I believe you’re referring to the first part of Article XX, Section C of the CBA. If so, they changed it in the most recent CBA and it doesn’t have any impact on current free agents:
Any Player who has 5 or more years of Major League service at the time of the assignment of his contract and whose contract was executed prior to October 23, 2006 and covers the next succeeding season, may elect, at the conclusion of the season following the assignment, to require that his contract be assigned to another Club. If the Player, however, subsequently signs a contract with the assignee Club, the Player shall not be eligible to require that Club to assign his contract if the contract executed with the assignee Club covers the next succeeding season. A Player who requires the assignment of his contract pursuant to this Section C shall not be entitled to receive a Moving Allowance.
I take it back
I was questioning this approach in another thread, but then I read this from Dejan:
Rather, the team, as it has with most free agents contacted so far, is informing free agents of interest in the event that those players are still available closer to spring training, when values almost invariably get better.If that’s all it is – basically letting agents know that the Pirates should be on their To Call list come January/February, then I don’t care if they call every available player. What worried me was that so many of the names coming out were marginal on the upside, but if the interest is only nominal, then I don’t think there’s any risk of accidentally signing, say, Jamey Wright just to show that they signed someone. And if someone slips through everyone else’s fingers and ends up a useful swingman in the ’pen, all the better.
Strictly NRI material at this point, if you ask me.
by Charlie Wilmoth on Dec 3, 2009 5:11 PM EST up reply actions
Logically he should be, but some idiot GM will give him a million or so in guaranteed money. No loss.
by WTM on Dec 3, 2009 5:13 PM EST up reply actions
Yet I read on MLB.com
That the Red Sox have interest in signing him to be their STARTER at SS next season. That couldn’t possibly happen, but it’s insane that the idea was even broached.
The Red Sox...
…were posturing to try and get better terms in their negotiations with Scutaro. It’s unfortunate for them that signing Crosby or moving Pedroia were the best Plan Bs they could put on the table, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.
Do you think Crosby would be a step up?
Seems like he would be a bit better glove-wise and at least he can take a walk. I’ve been incensed that Cedeno has only 1 walk in winter ball so far. If I were Huntington, I would say “go out to Venezuela and don’t come back until you’ve got a .330 OBP for me!”
One difference between then and now is that many of the current targets, like Ankiel and Blalock, aren’t upgrades over what the organization has in-house (like Milledge, or Clement). Crosby would probably be an upgrade at shortstop, as could some of the pitchers (though Bucs starting pitching isn’t much of a weak spot now).
Crosby would probably be at least a small step up...
…as a UT IF. Not sure whether that step would be worth the cost of getting him, though.
I like this
Get as much talents as you can as cheap as you can. If it doesn’t work out, trade it for Jesse Chavez.
God Created the World Out Of Nothing, Paterno Built A National Superpower On Cow Fields...
What am I missing here? From my old college logic class
Bobby Crosby is to shortstop
as
Jamie Wright is to bullpen
Eh, not exactly.
There are different gradients of suck. Crosby’s a pretty lousy hitter, but he’s at least a slightly-above-average defender. Whereas someone like Bixler can’t even handle a glove particularly well, in addition to being helpless with the bat.
Thus, there’s competition for the Crosbys of the world, because nobody wants to get stuck with a Bixler when the music stops.
Crosby
Definitely seems like a step up to me. He has some power. I didn’t look up the defensive statistics, but he always seemed adequate there.
Cedeno looks more like a utility guy to me.
Littlefield had a couple of problems in 2003...
1) he had 0 minor league prospects that were ready to take over when those players left.
2) The pitching staff was about as bad as you can get that year
Fun with the lineup run estimator
Create your own projections of lineups with this run estimator. You can modify to taste and then post the link back for all to see.
Optimistic Projection with Ankiel
Interesting
There’s a bigger swing than I expected from best to worst lineups – just under a run. But I guess the point is that no one would ever use the worst kind of lineups, so tinkering among likely lineups makes for pretty small differences.
Is it really consensus that the pitcher should bat 8th? Given that the top ~25 lineups all show that, it seems that this model, at least is certain of it. What’s the deal?
I guess my only nitpick is that Morton wouldn’t hit for that 2008 lineup, as he wouldn’t be here, but interesting stuff nonetheless. I do think your projected lineup is a bit too optimistic, sadly.
Yeah, I was using Morton
because when I was originally playing around with the 2010 lineup, I used Morton as our medium hitter pitcher. So I just put in his numbers to keep it constant in the 2008 lineup.
When I took Matsui out of the Yankees lineup and substituted a pitcher, the Yankees projection dropped by .7 runs. When you don’t have any “holes”, that really affects the overall performance.
I do agree they are too optimistic – I created this one as a “best case scenario”.
One thing that was interesting was despite the fact that so many of the players on the Pirates in 2008 were having career years, that they still produced more runs (4.9/game) to that point than would be projected.
So not only were their individual performances unlikely to continue, their team performance was also a bit on the lucky side.
The encouraging thing about that projection
is that we at least have nearly league average OBP in every spot in the lineup.
I guess it removed the underscores for me. Anyway – that’s how you do it. Make sure there’s no spaces around the colon.
I go back to...
Vlads raw HTML method. And scroll down to the third from last comment for instructions.
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