Did the Pirates Pursue the Wrong Type of Player in the Trades?
by Charlie Wilmoth on Apr 12, 2010 4:07 PM EDT
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PrintInteresting exchange in the Post-Gazette chat today:
Red Hot Ed Ott: It seems to me that the Coonelly/Huntingdon plan is only as good as the scout's ability to evaluate talent. Can you tell me what the perception is around the league of the Pirates scouting department?
Dejan Kovacevic: It is probably right to separate the plan from the execution when discussing what the Pirates are trying to achieve.
The plan itself is very popular among people around baseball, especially as it has related to the draft. But the execution to date, particularly the higher-profile trades, has not been.
That comes down to evaluating talent. It always does. But it also could include having a mindset of always trying to hit a home run rather than settling for singles and doubles once in a while. What I mean by that is high-risk pitching acquisitions that seem to be the Pirates' target most of the time. They prioritize arms over actual pitching.
Doing that when picking up people like Hayden Penn or, as a positive example for a while there, Tyler Yates, that's fine. But making trades for them is dangerous.
I'm not ready to say any of this is wrong, just that it doesn't quite square with the way I see things. All pitching acquisitions are high-risk. The Pirates plainly do like the type of pitcher who has good stuff but has weaknesses in other areas, and Kevin Hart was probably one of those. But a lot of their acquisitions in those areas have been free-talent types of acquisitions, like those of Penn, Yates (who came in a very minor trade), Denny Bautista, Donnie Veal and Evan Meek. Craig Hansen is another pitcher of that type who came in a trade, but he was a throw-in.
Most of the pitchers the Pirates have gotten in trades, like Daniel McCutchen, Jeff Karstens, Brett Lorin, Hunter Strickland, Casey Erickson, and Aaron Pribanic, really don't have that profile. A team that trades Freddy Sanchez for Tim Alderson, a very advanced, polished pitcher who keeps walks off the board, isn't really trying to hit the lottery--Alderson was regarded as a potentially good big league starter at the time of the trade, but not an ace. The trades actually represented a balance of relatively unpolished, high-upside pitching prospects, and polished, lower-upside ones. The common denominator is that they involved pitching prospects, who are inherently high-risk. Given the lack of pitching depth in the Pirates' system and the players they were trading, though, I think that acquiring a bunch of pitchers was defensible.
One telling detail about all of this is that when the Sanchez/Alderson trade was announced, most of the Giants' smarter fans flipped out. I don't know which "people around baseball" Kovacevic is talking to, but I do know that most front-office types would have been unwilling to part with a bunch of great prospects for what the Pirates were offering, and this is the part of the trades that I think a lot of angrier fans (and perhaps also these "people around baseball") miss. I'm going to wait to see if this continues for a month or so before I do a full-blown post about this, but lots of the players the Bucs traded have already seen their stock decline considerably, and in ways that were predictable. As others here have pointed out: Sanchez is hurt. Nate McLouth is currently hitting eighth in the Braves' order. Xavier Nady is a bench player. Not only were these players not very good to begin with, but many of them were also nearing the ages when injury and decline became more and more likely. The expectations fans had for Neal Huntington in those trades were simply too high.
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“high-risk pitching acquisitions” = redundant
I think you’re right in saying they acquired a good mix of pitchers. The idea seemed to me simply to be to acquire lots and lots of pitchers. Risk + quantity is a pretty good equation if the risk comes with upside.
I don’t get the examples of Penn and Yates, when the question concerned trades. Penn was a waiver pickup. Yates came in a minor trade for a marginal prospect whom the Braves removed from their 40-man roster even though he’s pitched well in the minors.
I got the impression somewhere along the line that the baseball people who are unimpressed with the Pirates’ execution of their plan are thinking more of guys like LaRoche, Milledge, Clement and Cedeno than the pitchers they acquired.
This is a niggle
But I don’t think that DK was distinguishing how players were acquired – the question was about talent evaluation, which includes draft, FA, and trades (and “the plan” covers those 3 as well). So I don’t think it makes any sense to talk about how players came in.
That said, your list shows at most a 50/50 split between Yateses and McCutchens, which suggests that NH may have developed himself a reputation as a guy who chases arms over skill (a reputation, I think, that developed quickly in that first year, when it seemed that anyone who’d ever thrown a baseball over 93 was offered a job), but that it’s not accurate. I also think the rep came because it was such a contrast with DL, who apparently feared fastball pitchers.
I like swinging for a home run
when it comes to acquiring pitchers. There is this thing called coaching. Baseball people say that you can’t teach stuff. They are correct. NH may hit a couple out of the park after these guys get some quality instruction. What if one of those ends up as a top of the rotation guy. That would meliorate a bunch of strikeouts.
"Never mistake motion for action." - Ernest Hemingway
Nate McClouth
Is actually platooning with Melky Cabrera (much to my fantasy baseball team’s chagrin). But, yes, when he plays, he bats 8th.
Despite his disparaging comments in ST, I still pull for the guy and do hope he succeeds. He seems like a good enough guy… except for the whole Red Wings support.
Snell leaving the Mariners.
Well, that’s not really fair about Ian though, according to the Seattle Times, he left because of a death in the family.
Wow, ok. I took that out. The reasons had not yet been confirmed when I wrote that.
by Charlie Wilmoth on Apr 12, 2010 5:23 PM EDT up reply actions
That's cool.
I googled his name and that was the first story that came up. But before that I just assumed “the worse” like I’m sure most people did.
by IAPiratesFan on Apr 12, 2010 5:59 PM EDT up reply actions
Ohlendorf scratched from start tonight due to back spasms
Ohlendorf scratched from start tonight due to back spasms…Brian Burres to start in his place.
Charlie, I'm curious what you make of Cedeno's start to the year...
He hasn’t taken a walk yet, but he is hitting .400 (Ted Williams look out) with 2 stolen bags and an extra base hit so far. Not to mention the clutch single in the 10th in the second game of the year. I hate to point this out, because I feel it may confirm my fears, but he does have a .615 babip so far…
Still really early on in the season, I guess I’m just hoping that he turns out to be a pleasent surprise given that he’s only 27 and just about everyone has seemed to have written him off completely as a long term solution.
ronny cedeno's BABIP
before tonight’s game is .615
You definitely made your own point
BABIP at .615 is, in all likelihood, impossible to maintain. That being said, I’m certainly pulling for the guy!
The glare of the spotlight is harsh, and the pressure that success breeds immense. We revere our heroes, but expect much. And criticism can come as easily as praise.
Dejan
A couple of thoughts:
1. I like that DK is pointing out the difference between the plan and the execution here. When Littlefield left, DK wrote a great piece about DL not having a plan; then he has seemed to be overly critical of NH for his plan (widely admired in baseball circles, apparently) over the last year or so, which I don’t get. But it’s perfectly fair to be critical of the execution, and I appreciate that he’s analyzing this now.
2. Early in NH’s tenure, DK wrote a (I felt) glowing piece about NH’s acquisition of power arms and how this differed from DL, and why this was such a necessary change. I specifically remember sending a question to the Q&As whether this made sense from a “Moneyball” perspective of taking advantage of undervalued qualities in the market, and DK printed my question and responded that this didn’t even apply because it was so universally accepted by “people in baseball” that you had to have power arms. I’ll try to find it in the PG archives.
All pitching acquisitions are high-risk.
Ummm…or not?
I think you should qualify this and say that all pitching acquisitions are high-risk, if you are a cellar-dwelling team that doesn’t have much to offer in trades or money to spend on free agents.
The Plan
I think the plan was the correct plan, really, what other choice was there? They had to start over and trading for prospects was the only option. I disagree with the implementation of the plan though too. When you can’t sign super star free agents you can only draft them or trade for them when they are still prospects and haven’t shown their full potential yet. As far as drafting goes, I think they are doing a pretty good job, I would have liked to have seem them try to hit a homerun with the 4th pick this last year instead of a safer pick that Sanchez was. They get enough money where signing the best player on their board no matter the cost and still drafting the way they did in the later rounds should be done, you have a chance at a superstar with the 4th pick and used it instead on a safe catcher who isn’t nearly as good as Weiters or Posey that both went 5th the previous 2 years. Definitely if you aren’t going to spend on players like Chapman and Sano, the draft is the best chance they have at getting great players in their system. Now for the trades, in my opinion, I think they have done a horrible job evaluating players to go for in these deals. I would have much rather seen them go for 1 or 2 top guys instead of going for 4 or 5 lesser prospects, or atleast do a hell of a lot better in their deals. For Jason Bay we got 4 nothings, 4 guys that won’t help at all if we win again and aren’t worth anything to try to flip them for somebody else. In contrast the Tigers got Austin Jackson, Phil Coke, Max Sherzer and Daniel Schlereth for Curtis Granderson and Edwin Jackson. If Granderson is a better player then Bay, then it’s not by much and they got 4 guys who will all be starters on there squad and all are top tier prospects. Bay was our best trade chip, to get practically nothing in return is outrageous for a team in the Pirates position . Thats why the Tigers are and will continue to be contenders and the Pirates will be the Pirates. Same goes for the McClouth trade, granted, he’s not as good as he was thought to be but he was at his peak value and at the time didn’t need to be moved and we got no where near the value in return that other teams would have received for a player of his value at the time the deal was made. You just can’t get those types of returns on deals with probably your top 2 trade chips. Not to mention all the other deals made that brought back a bunch of crap, the trades with the Cubs drive me crazy because we got way less in return then we gave them and it needed to be reversed when you are in the Pirates position. The only deal I think was a good one and is exactly the type of deal they should have been making in all their deals was the Sanchez to the Giants for Alderson deal. They have no place to turn now, they have nothing to trade, they are set with the group they received from all those trades and in my opinion, that is almost nothing. It will be a long time before this team is competitive, a long time. Sorry for the rant.
"If Granderson is a better player then Bay, then it’s not by much"
Granderson is:
a) Younger than Bay.
b) Less expensive than Bay.
c) In better overall health than Bay.
d) Under team control for longer than Bay.
e) A CF, a position that’s harder for teams to fill than Bay’s position (i.e. LF).
f) A much better fielder at his more difficult defensive position than Bay is at his relatively easy one.
As such, he really isn’t a good basis for comparison to Bay, in terms of trade value.
And of course, LaRoche and Morris aren’t “nothings”. LaRoche was an average starting 3B in his first full year in the majors, and will likely continue to develop. Morris is a high-quality pitching prospect.
Vlad...what are you smoking?
First, Laroche would not start for another team IN baseball, he’s worse than useless for a corner infielder.
Secondly, Morris wouldn’t be listed in the top 300 prospect pitchers currently, his ERA along with his 88 MPH fastball is NOTHING.
Bay has hit for more power, hit for higher average, and many more RBI’s. You act like nobody in baseball wanted him and the bucs did well to get a PILE of USELESS GARBAGE.
Other teams get high prospects, the pirates get a pile of crap for most deals and NO, IT’S NOT BAD LUCK that we’ve got a 17 season “laughing stock” streak, it’s when we trade our stars, we ask and receive CRAP.
by Dan Jenkins on Apr 13, 2010 12:16 PM EDT up reply actions
I can't tell if this is serious or not...
The glare of the spotlight is harsh, and the pressure that success breeds immense. We revere our heroes, but expect much. And criticism can come as easily as praise.
Taking those in order:
1) You appear to have an unrealistic impression of what most teams are starting at 3B. If you rank all 2009 MLB 3Bs by WAR, he’s 15th, right between Kevin Kouzmanoff and Brandon Inge. Ergo, on merit, 2009 LaRoche would’ve started for approximately half of the teams in MLB, and is therefore an average regular. And as one would expect for a player in his age range, he’s been better (as of today) so far in 2010, though it is of course still very early in the year.
2) Morris’s fastball is faster than 88 MPH. That may be why you’re underrating him so drastically – do you have him confused with Alderson, maybe?
3) RBI say more about a player’s teammates’ ability to get on base than they do about the player’s ability to generate runs. And while Bay does hit for good power and average, he’s a well-below-average defender at the second-easiest defensive position, which neutralizes a good bit of that offensive value. It also puts him at a disadvantage compared to Granderson and LaRoche, both of whom are above-average defenders at more difficult positions.
4) This is too vague for me to respond in any detail. In general, let me recommend that you provide specific examples rather than just frothy hyperbole – it will generate much more support for your position.
I dunno Vlad
this guy is capitalizing random words. I think he means business and makes a good point because of it. I might START doing it TOO, to see IF my useless POSTS get any merit FROM those whom think BIGGER is better.
Not to mention...
Edwin Jackson was part of that deal too. Guy might not be Tim Lincecum, but he had a heck of a year last year and started to capitalize on his potential. Heck, you could argue that none of the guys in the Bucs rotation have Jackson’s talent.
Granderson
Is a much better player than Bay right now and Edwin Jackson is probably a better pitcher than any on our team right now so I don’t know how you can compare the trade of Granderson and Jackson to any of the Pirates recent deals.
One of the things
that I see a lot is that fans whom I perceive as being overly optimistic tend to place a higher value on some of our current players than I would. I’m not a baseball scout, so that’s perfectly acceptable. I think, however, that the assessment of our players by these fans does not accurately coincide with on the field performance in terms of team success. For instance, someone above noted that Andy Laroche was essentially a middle of the road 3B in terms of WAR.
2009
Doumit .9, but I’ll give him a pass for injury.
Umm, Clement? Not in the majors, pass.
Imawura 1.3
LaRoche 2.5
Cedeno -.6
Milledge .7
McCutchen 3.4
Jones 2.6
Duke 2.5
Maholm 3.2
Ohlendorf 1.1
Morton 1.2
Burres .1 Give him a pass though because he only had 2 games in the bigs.
Dotel .8
So our best player is Andrew McCutchen (which we already new), and his 3.4 ties him for 10th best CF last year in terms of WAR, along with Victorino and Curtis Granderson (behind McClouth and Morgan). Our best players overall after that would appear to be Maholm (tied 41st with the likes of Matt Scherzer and Jeff Niemann, making him roughly a decent number 2 guy), Jones (11th, slightly above average), LaRoche (15th), and Duke (tied 55th with Brad Penny and Aaron Harang, borderline number 2 or 3 guy). Everyone else on there is roughly a run above replacement, so decidedly below average (compare it if you want, but I don’t feel like typing them all out). Essentially, we have 3 above average players based on the measurement used by the poster above for LaRoche, 1 average player, and then a roster filled out with below average (or below replacement value for some) players. That is not a formula for success. I think the pessimists might be a little more realistic in their assessments than they are given credit for.
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