Friday, December 19, 2014

My Take: Yankees Make Strong Move in Acquiring Eovaldi

15-35.

Let us get that out of the way first, as that is likely the first thing that the detractors will bring up when it comes to Nathan Eovaldi.   That is his career record with a less than sparkling 4.07 ERA (95 ERA+).

So, now that is out of the way, let us analyze this trade for the Yankees, which is likely their best move this entire winter (other than letting mediocre veteran pitchers sign elsewhere).

There is a lot to like about Eovaldi, who will only be 25 years old on Opening Day.  In 2014, he finally started to come into his own a bit, posting a 3.37 FIP (a full run below his actual ERA) while decreasing his walks considerably (from 3.4 in 2013 to 1.9 in 2014).  He did that while maintaining his strikeout rate (which, to be fair, has not been his strong suit.  But there could also be room for improvement there).

Eovaldi's overall season can be attributed to a lot of bad luck.  His BABIP (.323) was the 4th highest number in all of baseball, while his strand rate (65.5%) was the second lowest in all of baseball.  It doesn't take rocket science to figure out what happens when those two worlds collide. 

So, what does Eovaldi bring to the table stuff wise?  We must start with the fastball, which is one of the hardest thrown fastballs in all of baseball.  He averaged 95.5 MPH on it, which ranked him 4th in baseball.    He compliments his fastball with a 86 MPH slider, 86 MPH "change up" and a 76 MPH curve.    His two-seam fastball is his best pitch (according to fangraphs), while his other offerings are still not completely refined.  Essentially, the Yankees have acquired a pitcher who is still developing, but has enough major league experience to start passing some judgement on him.  If he continues to develop those secondary pitches (and he has a pitching coach who will help him in this regard), the K rate should begin to climb (a Rothschild specialty), which would instantly make Eovaldi one of the best young pitchers in the game.

As for Garrett Jones, the Yankees have acquired a needed right-handed bench power bat who can be used as insurance if there is an injury to Teixiera or Beltran.   But perhaps the biggest thing Jones can offer is that of a capable right-handed designated hitter once Alex Rodriguez proves to the world he simply cannot play anymore.   Jones will be a free agent after the 2015 season, so he is not a long-term piece to the puzzle.  In the short term, however, he does fill a void.

The Yankees also added power arm Domingo German in the deal.    The #6 prospect in the Marlins system, German throws a 97 MPH fastball.  He pitched in Low-A Greensboro (equivalent to Charleston in the Yankees organization) at the age of 21 last season, compiling a 2.48 ERA and 113/25 K/BB ratio over 123.1 innings.    The innings were a significant bump over his 2013 total, so that is something to watch.  But he instantly becomes one of the Yankees better pitching prospects - arguably only trailing Luis Severino in that spot.

The move also allows the Yankees to do something fans have been clamoring for:  Opening up a spot on the roster for a rookie second baseman, whether it be Robert Refsnyder or Jose Pirela.  The Yankees are highly likely to bring in a veteran to compete for the job, but as of now, the feeling seems to be that they want Refsnyder to come into spring training and win the job outright with Pirela as the backup option.   Refsnyder is the Yankees most advanced upper level prospect, and he should be ready for a big league job in 2015.  Whether that happens out of camp or not is still to be determined, but the fact that the Yankees are seemingly going to give him a legitimate chance is an exciting thing to think about.

As for what they gave up:  Martin Prado is a superb super-utility player, but not an irreplaceable player.  (Amazing how Brian Cashman works, isn't it?  One second, he is talked about as the third baseman for 2015 - the next, they sign Headley and ship Prado out the door).  The Yankees will miss the Prado that excelled in his brief stay after being acquired in 2014 - they won't miss the statistics he compiled PRIOR to that trade, however.   Overall, they lose veteran depth, which stings - but if it means playing time opportunities for someone younger, I am all for it.

David Phelps has done a good job as a "tweener" over the past several seasons for the franchise, mixing in solid work from both the rotation and the bullpen.  But if you get an opportunity to acquire a pitcher who is younger, has a lot more upside, AND is a no-doubt-about-it starter right now, you do it in a heartbeat.    Phelps did a lot to enhance his trade value through the years - there was a time when many doubted just how much of a major league pitcher he could be, despite strong minor league work.

Overall, the Yankees gave up a veteran utility player and a pitcher who has an injury history with his elbow for a young starter, a strong prospect, and a useful bench player who should provide them some power.    The Yankees have essentially swapped out Shane Greene in their rotation for Eovaldi, which is an upgrade, while acquiring their likely starting shortstop in 2015.   On top of that, they can hope that German can stay healthy and become the prospect Jose Campos was supposed to be prior to injury.  

My initial thought is to give this trade a big fat "A" - and nothing I have read over the past several minutes has changed my mind on that.  The Yankees became a more exciting team today - provided they don't go out and trade for a mediocre second baseman now.




Friday, December 5, 2014

My Take: Yankees Made Horrible Move in Signing Andrew Miller

Andrew Miller was fantastic in 2014.   Andrew Miller is in the conversation for best left-handed reliever in all of baseball in 2014.   Andrew Miller helps any team he is a part of.  

Andrew Miller is also one of the worst investments in all of baseball.  

You will not see me trying to dispute his greatness in 2014 - the numbers speak for themselves.  He is a pure power lefty who can get all hitters out, not just a token lefty.  His K/9 and K/BB ratios weren't simply great - they were insane.   In 2014, Miller was simply one of the biggest bargains in the game.

In 2015, he will be one of the most overpaid players in the game.

In some ways, Miller is like Dellin Betances.  A pitcher with a history of command/control problems who suddenly discovers it in 2014.   (Let us just say that if both regress back to the types of pitchers they were prior to 2014, we may as well buy out all of the Pepto Bismal in stock.  It won't be pretty - to be exact, it will be downright ugly, with Houdini (David Robertson) likely not around to bail them out.)

But just for the sake of argument, let us say that 2014 was the beginning of Miller's rebirth - and he will be able to pitch like that for the majority of this contract.

It is still a bad deal.

Let us look at a few reasons why:

1.  Unlike SS, the Yankees have internal options for the role Miller is going to be given.  No, Jacob Lindgren, Tyler Webb, and James Pazos are not household names, and may never be.    But Lindgren was a second-round pick in 2014 who many thought could make his big league debut as soon as last summer.  The Yankees (rightfully so) decided not to do that - but he should be ready sometime in 2015.   Webb and Pezos are not likely to ever pitch like Miller did in 2014, but they wouldn't need to - they are young relievers under team control for many years who have the potential to be good enough.    Relief pitching is so fickle by nature with a very small margin for error.   Even though we likely won't see Webb and Pezos put up a season like Miller just did, we also may not see Miller ever put up a season like he just did.  It isn't like he has a history of success.   Also, the Yankees are loaded with right-handed relief options as well.  The bottom line is that relief pitching is one area that the Yankees develop very well.  Spending money on Miller to reinforce something that doesn't need reinforcing is just not smart.

2.   If Robertson doesn't come back, the Yankees downgraded their biggest 2013 strength. As good as Miller was in 2014, he doesn't have the history of success that Robertson has, and even if he may have been a better reliever in 2014 (debatable), it wasn't by much.   Allowing Robertson to come back to close keeps Dellin Betances in a true "fireman's" role,  allowing the Yankees to use him pretty much at any time to get a big out.   As a "closer", he would be relegated to 9th inning duty only (no, that isn't a rule - but name the manager that is willing to use their closer as anything but the "9th inning guy").  As the bullpen stands right now, it is Betances-Miller-Warren-Wilson (acquired for Cervelli)-Kelley and some combination of two other guys (they have a lot of internal options to choose from and just resigned Esmil Rogers as well).  With Robertson, it would have been Robertson-Betances-Warren-Wilson-Kelley + 2 other guys.  The latter is certainly a better bullpen than the former in my opinion - for the simple reason that Robertson is, as we speak, the one more likely to repeat past performance.

3.   It means that the Yankees are trying to win in a way that teams simply cannot consistently win.
Building a team from bullpen - down doesn't work.   Why?  Because the bullpen is simply not the most important part of the team.  It is certainly more important now than it was even ten years ago, as more and more teams watch the workloads of their starters and try to shorten games with shutdown bullpens.  But as important as the bullpen is, it still is no substitute for a strong starting staff or a strong offense.  Let me ask the most basic of questions:  Would you rather have 5-0 leads with an average bullpen or 1-0 leads with a tremendous bullpen?  If you say the latter, I hope you are not a baseball executive.

4.  Which leads to........the Yankees simply have more pressing needs.
I will be honest - I hate giving out big contracts to relievers, though I would have accepted signing Robertson because he came from the Yankees' farm system and has been excellent for many years.   That said, if the Yankees had a great offensive team with a good enough starting staff and wanted to splurge on Andrew Miler to complement David Robertson, I would have cringed but wouldn't have gone crazy over it.  But none of that applies to the 2015 Yankees.  The offense may improve (hard for it to get worse), but it seems unlikely it will go from decisively below average to decisively above average with essentially the same cast of characters plus Didi, the skeleton of Alex Rodriguez,  and maybe Robert Refsnyder.  Is it possible that they will get the type of year from McCann in 2015 that they wanted in 2014?  Of course.  He did hit well late in the season.  Beltran?  Yes, it is possible that now that his surgery is taken care of that that he will bounce back into a productive player.   But this is where baseball fans can get into a lot of trouble:  They begin to assume all of the good will likely occur.   The reality is, given the age of the offense, that the bad is much more likely to occur than the good.    Having a shutdown bullpen is nice...when everything else is clicking.  Not everything else is clicking, and the Yankees are no more likely to make the playoffs now than they were before the day started.   As I stated in my other post, I have warmed up to the trade they made a bit.  But I won't warm up on this move because it was completely unnecessary.

All of that said, it is still a young offseason and the starting pitching on the market has still not moved, which will allow the Yankees to jump in and sign a few pitchers to fill in the voids on the starting staff.   But that offense - oh, that offense.  Nothing they are doing will currently save that, and they are so handcuffed with bad contracts on the offensive side of the ball that it makes upgrading that much more difficult.  How can they look into a useful bat like Brandon Moss, when they don't have a place to put him in the lineup?   They currently have a mediocre lineup that they are unable to upgrade because of contractual commitments.  Perhaps this is why they decided to spend on the bullpen.  It still isn't smart.


My Take: Yankees Trade for Didi Gregorious

There are many times when I see a Yankees' move that I go with my first reaction.  My first reaction to the Brian McCann signing was "Yay!"  My first reaction to the Jacoby Ellsbury signing was "What are they doing?"

Today, I am actually doing something different - as I am, for the first time in a long time, not going with my initial reaction in my analysis.

My first thought when I saw the Gregorious (can't wait to see what the Bleacher Creatures come up with) for Shane Greene trade was "This makes no sense!  Time to go to the Yankees offices and bash down Brian Cashman's door!"

However, I think I was wrong about that.

There aren't many deeper black holes in baseball than the 2015 SS position for the New York Yankees.  They just lost a Hall of Famer.  Their best prospects at the position are at least three years away, if they ever come at all.  The list of free agents is less than inspiring.   There simply was nothing obvious when it came to who was going to play the position in 2015.  Everyone was flawed - and not spending a multi-year deal on a flawed player like Jed Lowrie is perfectly acceptable.

So they decided to go the trade route, dealing last year's big surprise starting pitcher (Greene) for a shortstop with less than inspiring offensive skills but a solid defensive reputation (Gregorious).   

When you saw Greene pitch in 2014, it was hard to not be impressed.  He mixed in a hard sinking fastball with a solid breaking pitch to produce results that nobody in their right mind expected.  After the 2012 season, when Greene compiled a 5.22 ERA in High-A ball as a 23-year old, it appeared that his only ceiling would be that of a middle reliever.   However, something changed in 2013.  Greene suddenly started to walk less hitters (BB/9 went from 5.1 all the way down to 1.7), his strikeout rate remained strong, and he suddenly went from a nothing prospect to a fringe starting prospect, which is actually quite remarkable.   We all saw what happened in 2014 - after a slow start due to being jerked around between Triple-A and the major leagues without actually pitching, Greene came on like gangbusters - helping save the rotation after the injuries to Tanaka, Pineda, and Sabathia crippled the staff.

So why am I changing my mind slightly about this trade?  It is all about supply and demand.  Not long ago, Greene would have been treated like gold, because he was rare.  A relatively young pitcher who was cost-controlled with big league success on his resume.   But that is no longer the case.    Nowadays, pitching can be found - maybe not as cheaply as Greene would be, but it can be found.  The market is still littered with several capable starting pitchers, and the Yankees will likely sign one or two or three of them before all is said and done.

But shortstops?  Try finding a 24-year old shortstop with any kind of talent for a projected #4 or #5 starting pitcher.   It is almost impossible to do so.   The Yankees were not going to fix any problems with their offense through the SS position - that kind of player simply was not available, unless you think Stephen Drew was going to bounce back to 2013 levels (and stay healthy while doing so).   Drew was nothing more than a short-term, band-aid solution with no real upside to speak of - the Yankees evaluated him for a few months at the end of 2014 and came away unimpressed (which is not surprising)

Gregorious is not flawless.  He is a capable bat against right-handed pitching, but is atrocious vs. left-handed pitching, which could force the Yankees to look for a capable right-handed backup IF who can handle shortstop.   Given his defensive play, I would hesitate to bench him versus all left-handed pitching, but he shouldn't be out there against good southpaws.

So, yes - at first, I thought this deal was dumb.  I thought it was bad - I thought the Yankees had officially gone over the edge.   

But now?  I am at least more open to what they did - I don't necessarily love it, but I do actually understand it.    We should hesitate a bit before we overrate Shane Greene - while keeping it in the back of our minds that Gregorious is also no sure thing.  There is a chance that in a few years, everyone will say "What was that trade the Yankees, D'Backs, and Tigers made again?  What happened to those guys?"