After weeks of buildup, the Orioles and Mariners finally completed the deal that sends Erik Bedard to Seattle, with Adam Jones, George Sherrill, Chris Tillman, Tony Butler, and Kam Mickolio heading to Baltimore.Unlike the Tejada trade, or giving billions to Torii Hunter, the problem with this trade (from Seattle's standpoint) isn't the player they are receiving. Although there are concerns about his stamina/injuries (he's never thrown 200 innings), it's hard to argue with Bedard's 2007 numbers- a 3.16 ERA, and 221 Ks in 182 innings. PECOTA projects him as the third best pitcher in the AL, with a VORP of 42.2, behind only Sabathia and Beckett.
Bedard is very good. The thing is, so is Adam Jones. Last year, at the age of 21, Jones hit .314/.382/.586. He also happens to play CF, and is excellent defensively. Even with all the megadeals, he is likely the best prospect (if he can still be considered one) to change teams this offseason.
The addition of Bedard obviously helps, but losing Jones cancels out a significant portion of that boost. With Ichiro already in center, Seattle goes from having Jones as their right fielder (projected VORP of 21.4, "Very Good" in RF) to having Brad Wilkerson (projected VORP of 4.1, "Average" in RF). So unlike the Santana trade, the Mariners are giving up a significant amount of 2008 value in order to acquire an ace. They're also losing something in giving up Sherrill, who has held lefties to a .167/.227/.291 line in his career.
But still, Seattle is improving their 2008 roster. And since they won 88 games last year, and play in a relatively weak (and small) division, there is a lot of value in a marginal improvement of 2-3 wins.
If they really were an 88-win team in '07, this would be a decent argument. But (and I'm obviously not breaking any new ground here, as Law, Sheehan, USSM, and many others have already discussed this) they weren't. They were outscored by 19 runs- their Pythag record was 79-83. If you're going from 88 to 91 wins, and significantly increasing your chances of finishing ahead of the Angels and reaching the postseason, this is a defensible trade*. If, as is the case here, you're going from something like 82 wins to 85, and only marginally upping your odds of playing in October, it's not.
The predictive value of a team's RS/RA is not a complicated concept. Seattle scored 19 fewer runs than they allowed in 2007; they were a very average team. It seems absurd for a GM to lack a fundamental understanding of how good his current roster is, but that is the reason this trade went down.
*Maybe. I think this would be a very interesting debate. I kind of find it hard to believe that the next six years of Adam Jones, three really cheap and three under market, aren't worth more then the next two of Erik Bedard, slightly under market, whether you extend him or not. Throw in Sherrill and Tillman, and I just have a hard time seeing it. By the way, what do the Orioles want with Sherrill? 31-year old lefty specialists who throw 45 innings a year really don't have that much value on a team that's going to lose 95 games. Flip him in a trade, I guess?
Photo: amateurmusicians.net.
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5 comments:
I've been a long time fan of the M's, and when I first started hearing speculation about this trade, I was floored. To see the 'experts' call, it, though, you'd think that the M's were going to win 100 games, when, in truth, they're going to be lucky to sniff .500.
The Mariners gave up more for Bedard than the Mets did for Santana...proving once again that the M's have the most incompetent leadership in all of MLB.
This has got to be one of the worst trades of the 08 pre-season, and one of the worst of all time, dollar-wise. For the M's of course. And nothing to do with whether they are an 80 or 88 win team (most likely the former).
Here is a back-of-the-envelope calculation of the $ value of the two players, Bedard and Jones.
Jones is a gargantuan commodity. He is worth around 3 to 4 WAR per year for the next 6 years. Call that an average of 15 mil per year for a total FA value of 90 mil. He gets paid the min for the next 2-3 years until he is arb eligbile. Then he'll make maybe an average of 6 mil a year for his 3 years of arb, for a total salary of around 20 mil.
So the O's get around 70 in equity from Jones (as compared to his FA worth) for the next 6 years. Wow! And the M's lose that of course.
What about Bedard. He is indeed one of the best SP in baseball. Worth around 4 WAR now, but a pitcher loses around .5 wins a year, mostly from chance of injury. He only has 2 more years before FA, so he has a total WAR of around 7.5. Let's even call it 8. That is worth around 32 mil. He'll be paid 7 mil this year and around 9 mil next. So his FA equity is 16 mil.
So, let's see, the M's give up a commodity worth 70 mil and get one worth 16 mil, for a net loss of 54 mil over the next 6 years.
They do not by this horrific deal do anything to dispel the notion that they are indeed one of the worst run franchises in baseball, at least from a player evaluation (and valuation) and sabermetric perspective.
VW:
Dave Trembley has already stated his intention to use Sherrill as a closer. Whether or not that's a good idea, the O's don't have a lot of other options with Chris Ray and Danys Baez out with Tommy John surgery.
That's interesting. Probably not a terrible idea, either. In his career lefties have a .518 OPS against him, rights .736. That's certainly a big split, but it's not like righties absolutely destroy him (actually, the righties' line is .261/.384/.352, which is interesting). So if he's pitching 65 innings rather than 40, even if his ERA increases a little with facing more righties, he's probably more valuable.
Back to my original point- the Orioles are going to suck for (at least) a couple years. The other four guys are young, and will help them when they, theoretically, are contending in 3-4 years. Sherrill will be somewhat helpful right now- say, allow them to win 68 games rather than 67, but that's really not accomplishing anything. And chances are when they finally do contend, he'll be long gone.
As a Baltimore resident, I've heard more crap about this trade on the radio than anyone should be exposed to.
Sherrill will close, or at least be given the opportunity to in a "Closer by Committee" situation.
New COO Andy MacPhail has said he wants to trade who he can and re-build, and Tejada and Bedard leaving makes me think Ramon Hernandez, Aubrey Huff, Melvin Mora and - if someone is stupid enough - Kevin Millar are on the block.
MacPhail has a trade in the works for Brian Roberts to go to the Cubs, bringing back Felix Pie and some pitching. With Pie, Jones and Markakis all under 25, under contract for awhile and roaming the outfield in Camden, MacPhail can focus on bringing in a big-time free agent pitcher or slugger at one of the corners (Mark Teixera, who grew up around Maryland and has already expressed his desire to play here?) and this team could compete ...
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