Pirates Close to Three-Year Deal with Freddy Sanchez

by Charlie Wilmoth on Feb 2, 2008 4:27 PM EST in News

The Bucs are close to signing Freddy Sanchez to a three-year deal which would postpone his free-agency eligibility until after 2010. We'll see how much it costs them, and I suppose it's somehow refreshing that the Pirates are now acknowledging that the year 2010 even exists. (Their entire offensive core is set to become eligible for free agency then, and there are few prospects in the farm system to replace the players who may leave; before Dave Littlefield was fired, it looked like the Bucs were headed toward a 110-loss season that year.) But Sanchez, a second baseman who started his career late and doesn't have much power, seems like a bad bet to age well. If everything turns out well for him, he might turn out to have a Mark Grudzielanek or Placido Polanco-like career (to name a couple of his PECOTA comparables) - which would be pretty good, but I don't think his upside is much higher than that. His downside is the last few years of Edgardo Alfonso's career, which scares me.

The same article reports that Paul Bako has signed a minor-league deal with the Reds, which is fine with me.

-P- The Mets signed Johan Santana to a six-year, $137 million deal with an option for a seventh season. Obviously, that's a ton of money, but Santana's been great and durable, and he's still relatively young. He'll still only be 34 when the contract potentially expires.

-P- Finally, the Red Sox have agreed to a one-year, $700,000 deal with Sean Casey, who will back up Kevin Youkilis and allow the Sox to use Youkilis at third when Mike Lowell needs a break.

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Why do I think

the Mets are going to regret that trade sooner rather than later? Like when Santana's arm finally falls off around June 1 from pitching 900+ innings the past four years? The Twins rode that horse mighty hard and his numbers started to inch upward some last year (yes, they were still great, but ...).

Heh, not that it bothers me a whit if the Mets end up screwed.

by bucdaddy on Feb 2, 2008 6:15 PM EST reply actions

What do you mean?

Rode that horse pretty hard? Santana is a very efficient pitcher, and didn't throw over 110 pitches very often. I don't think 225 innings is that remarkable. What else would a great pitcher throw? Crappy pitchers usually throw 180 or more.

If he breaks down, it won't be from abuse by the Twins.

by azibuck on Feb 2, 2008 7:17 PM EST up reply actions

Sayin'

(without doing any real research to back this up, mind you, that would mean work) that it probably takes an extraordinary pitcher to handle that kind of workload for that long, especially for a power pitcher.

And he just might be an extraordinary pitcher, and maybe he'll put up 12 straight seasons of 225+ a year and never have a serious arm injury.

But his top 10 comps include guys like Don Gullett (finished at 28), Teddy Higuera (big dropoff at age 30), and Doug Rau (washed up at 30).

Santana's going to be 29.

He also has Roy Halladay and Jake Peavy on his list, so maybe not. But while I'm not betting beers on it, not yet, I'd say the odds are in favor of his arm coming off sometime.

by bucdaddy on Feb 2, 2008 8:52 PM EST up reply actions

Santana

Bucdaddy, I think it's possible to look at his innings pitched totals and be misled by it. He doesn't pitch so many innings because the Twins are riding him hard, he pitches lots of innings because he doesn't get hurt and doesn't have a lot of outings where he can't get out of the second inning. I checked his pitches-per-start numbers and Prospectus' "pitcher abuse points" for each of the last five years and he's never had a year where you look at those numbers and think there's cause for concern. The Twins have never let him pitch more than 102 or so pitches per start, which is routine, and they never had him throw 130 pitches in a start or anything like that. In terms of "pitcher abuse points" he's generally ranked somewhere between 50th and 75th in baseball, which is not cause for concern at all.

In fact, it's possible (totally speculating here, I haven't done any research on this front) that if projection systems are comparing him to broken-down pitchers on the basis of innings pitched numbers, they're missing the boat entirely.

Of course, he still could break down. But I don't think he's at much greater risk than any other pitcher his age.

by Charlie Wilmoth on Feb 2, 2008 9:24 PM EST up reply actions

Incidentally

PECOTA's top four comps are Floyd Bannister, Tom Seaver, Mickey Lolich, and Billy Pierce. The last three were pretty great from ages 29-32. Bannister wasn't, but he wasn't that great to begin with, so I'm not sure what PECOTA's thinking there.

by Charlie Wilmoth on Feb 2, 2008 9:32 PM EST up reply actions

Points taken

Pretty amazing his strikeout numbers are that high without him throwing a lot of pitches. But yeah, with his WHIP always around 1, means he's only averaging four batters an inning. And as good as he is, he's had just two CGs the past two years, which squares with your notion they didn't ride him that hard.

Some other interesting numbers I see. Can it really be that he's only given two intentional walks in his entire MLB career? Can that possibly be right? What else could "IBB" stand for?

Still, there are some very early warning signs. His HRs allowed the past four years have gone 24, 22, 24, 33.

And his ERA vs. the league ERA (not a great measure, I know) has gone 2.12, 1.58, 1.70, 1.00. Now he's "just" a run better than league average. His ERA+s reflect a drop too.

Could just be a one-season aberration, of course, just random chance, an unlucky year.

Sigh. I wish about three of our pitchers would be so unlucky.

by bucdaddy on Feb 2, 2008 9:42 PM EST up reply actions

Criminy

To think he was a Rule 5 guy (Astros), and then got traded WITH CASH (Marlins) for somebody who subsequently disappeared. We're not the only idiots.

by bucdaddy on Feb 2, 2008 9:47 PM EST up reply actions

Your point's taken too

His 2nd half last year is a yellow flag at least. I don't know what is behind the falloff, but if it was lost velocity, that'd be a big yellow flag with Red Stripe(s).

by azibuck on Feb 2, 2008 10:04 PM EST up reply actions

Now that you mention it ...

yeah. I hadn't looked at his splits, but that second half looks close to average for a normal human pitcher. However, his TTOs don't appear all that different from half to half -- if anything, his strikeout rate went up -- so maybe just bad luck w/ BABIP?

The month-by-month breakdown doesn't show anything real alarming either, but the results weren't there. After going all year not giving up more than 4 runs in a game, he gets lit up for 6 on July 23, 5 on Aug. 3 and 6 on Sept. 21. But in between those he has 8IP/2H/17K Aug. 19 and 5H/10K Sept. 9.

So I dunno. Kinda of hard to say from just looking at the numbers what his deal was. Be far more interesting to see velocity breakdowns on his pitches to test my theory of a possible tired arm.

by bucdaddy on Feb 2, 2008 10:39 PM EST reply actions