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The Santana Trade, Again and Again and Again

ubelmann September 2, 2009, at 2:17 am 52 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired) , ,

Now that Mulvey's gone, I've heard a lot of "all we effectively got for Santana was Gomez, Guerra, and Jon Rauch." The main reason I dislike that spin on the trade is that we got huge, huge, huge salary relief by getting rid of Santana. The Twins weren't going to have a larger budget just because Santana was around--certainly not larger by $15-25M--and with Santana in the fold that means getting rid of some of the other big contracts the team is holding. (And the biggest contracts now are Morneau, Nathan, Mauer, and Cuddyer.)

Forget Guerra, Humber, Mulvey, and Rauch for a moment. On a team with a sub-$120M payroll right now, I would rather have Carlos Gomez and his contract than Johan Santana and his contract. Even disregarding the bone chips in Santana's elbow, and supposing he gets back to full health and even doesn't have a major injury in the next few years (which of course is not guaranteed), Santana is still extremely unlikely to out-pitch his contract in any given year, let alone over the course of the entire contract. And if the Twins, or any other team with a limited payroll for that matter, are going to consistently compete, it's hard to do that when $20-25M of your payroll is (in the best possible case) just barely pulling its weight. You need your players to outperform what you are paying them. And while Gomez is no sure bet to do that, it's at least possible that he'll take a step forward and give you value over and above what you've paid him, and he's already been about +$11-12M in net value.

When Santana was on the market, there was a very good reason that teams like Oakland, Tampa Bay, Colorado, and Texas weren't lining up around the block to deliver their prospects to us for him, and that reason was his nine-figure contract. Even teams like the Braves, Dodgers, and Pale Hosers weren't pushing hard for Santana, and they have been spending substantially more money than the Twins.

This of course should naturally bring up the question of whether it actually makes good baseball sense for the Twins to keep Mauer when they have to pay full price for him. I will say that Mauer has these things going for him over Santana:

1) I worry less about major injury risk for a position player than a pitcher, even if that position player is a catcher.

2) Mauer is a couple years younger than Santana was when the Twins traded Santana.

Back in the '98-'99 offseason, a soon-to-be 30-year-old Mike Piazza got a $91M/7-year deal from the Mets. In the meantime, it appears as if league payrolls (at least amongst wealthy teams) have roughly doubled. That'd put Mauer in line for something like $180M and 7 years as a free agent.

Ultimately, I want the Twins to keep Mauer, but it's going to be a lot harder (though not impossible) to win when he's making $20-25M per year than when he's been getting $10M (and less) per year. Keeping star players at free agent rates is certainly not an obvious path to success for mid-market teams, and dumping Santana for a fairly minimal return in talent still seems like the right move to me.

Better Know A Citizen – Spookymilk

Andrew March 16, 2009, at 10:00 am 56 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired) , , , , , ,

Name: Kelly
SBG Monkier: Spookymilk
Hometown: Blue Earth, Minnesota
Town I Currently Live In: Yakima, Washington. It’s on the less exciting side of the state.
Profession: Professional actor and screenwriter. I have an IMDb page as of a few months ago, but it’s pretty lean at the moment. There’s a lot coming down the pipe in 2009/2010.
Bats: Switch, extremely poorly.
Throws: Right
Positions: Third Base. I was quite good at it.
Greatest Career Achievement in Baseball/Softball/T-ball: As a hitter, I hit my only home run against Mapleton, and the bases were loaded (we won by 12, but whatever). As a fielder, there are a lot, but I got to start a triple play once in fifth grade, which is hard as hell to do with such short baselines.
Click here to continue reading Better Know A Citizen – Spookymilk...

Better Know A Citizen – DK

Andrew March 2, 2009, at 10:00 am 86 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired) , , , , , , ,

Name: DK
Hometown: Owatonna, Minnesota
Town I Currently Live In: Minneapolis
Profession: Law student
Bats: Left
Throws: Right
Positions: First Base/Right Field
Greatest Career Achievement in Baseball/Softball/T-ball: I won the "gold glove" award on my junior high youth association baseball team, the last season I played organized baseball. I couldn't cut it any more after that as a hitter since I was OBPing around .380 at an age where the best guys were still putting up .700 or more. But, conversely, reliable defenders were hard to find at that level, so my ability to actually pick it and make consistent outs at 1B was appreciated.
Click here to continue reading Better Know A Citizen – DK...

Non-Story or ?

SBG February 28, 2009, at 7:29 am 2 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired)

Johan Santana to miss second straight scheduled spring training start with sore elbow. With $118.5 million left on his deal, I wouldn't be rushing him, either.

Taking a Look at the Santana Trade

ubelmann December 10, 2008, at 6:42 pm 13 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired) , , , , , , , , , ,

Q: How did the Twins compete after trading away the best pitcher in baseball?

A: That trade didn't actually hurt them.

Click here to continue reading Taking a Look at the Santana Trade...

Francisco Rodriguez To New York Santanas?

ubelmann December 9, 2008, at 11:58 am 2 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired) , ,

Looks like K-Rod is headed to Shea Stadium Citibank ATM to help our old buddy Johan hang on to his wins. K-Rod certainly has a lot of room for regression given his peripheral stats the last 2-3 years, but 3 years, $37M is way, way less than I thought he'd get. With the Mets' payroll, it's actually a pretty reasonable contract.

Picking Your Spots

ubelmann July 24, 2008, at 12:40 am 9 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired) , ,

I've never read anything Johnette Howard has written before, and after reading this, I probably won't read anything she writes in the future.

Rather than go blow-by-blow, FJM-style, I'll list the two main points I got from the article, and why I think they're crap.

Point: At the beginning of the 9th inning, in a game where the Mets were leading by three runs, Santana had thrown 105 pitches, and Billy Wagner was unavailable, Santana should have gone out to pitch the 9th inning.

Why I think that's wrong: Given a set of average pitchers and average hitters, a team in that spot wins 92.6% of the time. Santana usually leaves the game after about 100 pitches. Or at least, that was the standard operating procedure in Minnesota that kept Santana's arm in one piece. The bullpen could blow that lead, sure--but so could Santana.

So, sure, you could improve your chances of winning that game by 4-5% by putting Santana in, but is that really worth it? Johnette Howard gets the financial incentives here all wrong. She suggests that because he's the $137M man, he should be expected to do more--or something like that. Where she misses the point is that for the Mets to get their return on that investment, he has to be healthy and in the rotation for the next five years. Break him now and you're probably out for a season, then it'll take some time for him to get back to 100%, if he ever gets there at all. That's a lot to risk for an extra 4-5% chance of winning the game.

One thing that I think the save has done is that it's poisoned our minds into thinking that a 3-run game requires the best of the best on the mound. It doesn't. A 3-run lead, for one inning, is a rather huge lead. Take the recently-maligned Brian Bass for instance. Bass is not a very good pitcher. (And if the Mets couldn't find a more talented pitcher than Bass in that situation, then they deserved to lose.) Bass has pitched 60+ innings for the Twins and has allowed 3 or more runs in just 4 of those innings. And Bass has been absolutely terrible. On top of that, the Mets are at home, so even three runs in that spot doesn't lose the game for them. This is how guys like Todd Jones and Joe Borowski are allowed to let their ERAs balloon to ridiculous heights before they are replaced as the closer--a lot of saves are just not that difficult to nail down.

Even considering that they were playing their division rival, there's over two months of baseball left and that's a pretty safe lead. There are times when you need to push your players and times when you need to pace them, and that was a perfectly appropriate time to pace Santana and go to the bullpen. They made the right decision and it didn't work out--it happens.

Point: Santana should have been lobbying to stay in the game.

Why I think that's wrong: Jerry Manuel is the manager. It's his job to make the pitching changes. If Manuel thinks he's done, then Santana's done--it's just not his call. It's certainly happened before, and baseball is full of stories (probably a lot of them that are more than a little exaggerated) about the pitcher who just wouldn't let the manager take him out of the game. In the 7th game of the World Series, maybe that makes you a hero. On July 22nd, in my book, that makes you a nuisance, and if I'm managing you, I'm telling you to shut up and sit back down on the bench, because I call the shots around here. (And then I go out to the media and tell them it doesn't matter what Santana thinks about my call--that's my call to make.) I'm not letting Nick Punto tell me whether or not to pinch hit for him and I'm not letting Santana tell me he doesn't trust the bullpen with a 3-run lead.

Johnette Howard is a reporter and she wants a story. She wanted a statement game out of Santana and she didn't get it. I understand that, I suppose. The boring truth is that Jerry Manuel took one calculated risk instead of another calculated risk and it didn't work out. That's not a very sexy story, though, so I guess she needed to go and question Santana's manhood and will to win. Which I guess is pretty easy, since her job's not on the line if Santana becomes the new Mike Hampton.

I see Jim Leyland’s point…

ubelmann July 17, 2008, at 2:30 pm 4 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired) ,

I was going to post a game log today, assuming that the Twins had a game without actually checking the schedule. But when I went to find out the pitching matchup, it turns out that there are only eight teams with games today (and only two of those are AL teams.) When more than half the teams in the league don't play until tomorrow, it makes it look like they are getting the standard break while the other teams are getting short-changed.

Somewhat-related note: It looks like the Mets are probably going to benefit from Santana's absence from the ASG. He last pitched about a bazillion days ago, so he would have definitely been available for the ASG, but had he pitched on Tuesday, he might not have been available for today's game.

A New Home For BAJ

GreekHouse July 17, 2008, at 9:11 am Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired ,

Jefferson has apparently purchased a new home in Minnesota that formerly belonged to another famous Minnesota athlete.

Timberwolf Al Jefferson has bought ex-Twin Johan Santana's $1.6 million house in Golden Valley. Santana, with the New York Mets, still owns a $3.9 million house at Bearpath.

One Of These Pitchers Is Not An All-Star

ubelmann July 8, 2008, at 4:56 pm 5 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired) , , , , , ,

Pitcher A:
121.7 IP
2.96 ERA (5th in NL)
3.54 xFIP (4th in NL)
8.4 K/G
2.5 BB/G
45% GB%
141 career ERA+

Pitcher B
132.7 IP
3.66 ERA (17th in NL)
4.22 xFIP (18th in NL)
4.6 K/G
2.1 BB/G
55% GB%
111 career ERA+

Pitcher C
35.0 IP
4.37 ERA (not even qualified for leaderboards)
3.73 xFIP
10.0 K/G
4.1 BB/G
49% GB%
105 career ERA+

That's right, Johan Santana (Pitcher A) is not an All-Star, while Aaron Cook (Pitcher B) and Brian Wilson (Pitcher C) are All-Stars. And it's not even because each team needs an All-Star--the Rockies already have Matt Holliday on the roster and the Giants already have Tim Lincecum on the roster.

With Cook, it's easy to see why he was selected, even if it was silly. He's got a bunch of wins, so he gets the nod even though he's mediocre through and through.

When I saw Brian Wilson on the first All-Star roster I ran across, I naturally assumed that it was some kind of typo. And it was, kind of, because Wilson was listed as a starter. I figured that maybe Jonathan Sanchez or Matt Cain had gotten some love from the players (though it appears that they really haven't been all that great this year, even though I'd heard a lot of hype for them), and someone mistakenly put the wrong Giants pitcher on the roster. But no. I looked at a different roster, and there he was--Brian Wilson. Who the @#%* is Brian Wilson? I wondered aloud. Did the players get confused when they were reading the ballot and assume that they were choosing between Abraxas and Pet Sounds?

And then, there it is. Brian Wilson leads the NL in saves, with 24. Sometimes I think saves really do make people stupider. With the game on the line, who would the NL players rather have on the mound--Johan Santana or Brian Wilson?

In conclusion, Just Say No To Drugs.

Boo, freakin’ hoo.

Banjo June 30, 2008, at 12:18 pm 25 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired)

Santana keeps getting aced out.

No Game Today

ubelmann June 23, 2008, at 6:01 pm 17 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired) , , ,

But if you can find a way to watch it, Johan Santana and Felix Hernandez are pitching in the same game at 6:10 central. That's a lot of pitching goodness concentrated in one spot.

2008 Game 31: Minnesota Twins vs. Chicago (Expletive)

ubelmann May 6, 2008, at 6:11 pm 181 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired) , , , , , ,

Nick Blackburn vs. Gavin Floyd

Floyd's peripherals were bad the last time we faced him, and they haven't gotten any better. Boof denied his unicorn last time, and now it's time for Blackburn to deny it yet again.

Random crap because I don't have much else to say about the pitching matchup:

- Jon Garland has but 10 strikeouts over 44 innings pitched, for 2 K/G. Sure, he's getting some ground balls, but that's just ridiculous.

- Fausto Carmona has an incredibly weird line so far: 2.60 ERA, 5.09 FIP, 5.52 xFIP, 3.2 K/G, 6.4 BB/G, 66.1% GB%. It's like someone crossed his wires turning his walks into strikeouts and vice versa.

- Actually, maybe Cliff Lee is some kind of pitching vampire that stole Carmona's strikeout abilities: 2.81 xFIP, 9.4 K/G, 0.6 BB/G, 45.3 GB%. He's faced a lot of weak lineups, and it's just April, but that's still pretty bizarre.

- Johan Santana's 3.07 xFIP leads the NL.

- Brad Wilkerson was recently released (or DFA, or something) by the Mariners after hitting just .232/.348/.304 to start the season. A comparison:

.232/.348/.304 -- 2008, Wilkerson, age 31
.216/.234/.284 -- 2008, Lamb, age 32

.251/.357/.442 -- career, park-adjusted, Wilkerson
.264/.315/.392 -- career, park-adjusted, Lamb

- The Top 5 in PrOPS in baseball: Chase Utley, Pat Burrell, Albert Pujols, Nick Johnson, Chipper Jones

- The Top 5 in PrOPS in the AL: Carlos Quentin, Jack Cust, Jason Giambi, Adrian Beltre, Eric Hinske (that's a bizarre list) Quentin has arguably been unlucky so far and has hit .271/.407/.583.

- Nick Swisher's PrOPS is .861 so far, compared to his actual OPS of .666, so it looks like he's been pretty unlucky lately. Not that I mind.

- Victor Martinez leads the AL in line drive percentage (LD%). Jhonny Peralta is worst. (And go figure, but David Oritz is third-worst.)

- Joe Crede has the lowest ground ball percentage (GB%) in the AL. Julio Lugo and Derek Jeter have the highest. Delmon Young has the 5th-highest, sandwiched between David Eckstein and Ichiro Suzuki.

- Nine qualified AL hitters, including Delmon, have yet to hit an infield fly ball this season.

- Ten qualified AL hitters, including Delmon, Mauer, Lamb, Bartlett, and Jeter have yet to hit a HR this season.

Checking in with Johan Santana

ubelmann May 1, 2008, at 7:02 pm 22 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired) , ,

I hadn't checked up on Santana in a while, so when I heard about this, I figured I would take a peek at Santana's numbers.

Though I don't think that ERA accurately reflects how well a pitcher has pitched, it has been Santana's early-season ERA that spawned the belief that Santana is a slow starter. Let's take a look at his March/April ERA since he's been a starter full-time:

5.40 -- 2004
3.55 -- 2005
4.45 -- 2006
3.60 -- 2007
3.12 -- 2008

His career ERA as a starter is 3.11. There was a legitimate reason for his slow start in 2004--he had bone chips removed from his elbow in the offseason and there's normally an adjustment period after that procedure. So, other than that, 2006 stands out, and 2005/2007 are both worse than average...but I'm not seeing a very big effect here. Maybe Santana's something like a 3.50 pitcher in April, with one good outlier ('08) and one bad outlier ('06) and the surgery adjustment year.

Now for the good stuff:

9.6 K/G, 2.0 BB/G, 46.8 GB%, 3.14 xFIP -- Santana, 2008

Going by the numbers at fangraphs, I get Santana's career average to be 37.8% GB%. Santana was getting more ground balls in 2004-6 than he did last year, which I think was due in large part to his blister problems being worse than usual and preventing him from throwing his slider as often. Sure enough, he's back up to 14.7% sliders this year (15.0% career average) from 11.6% sliders last year. If his 3.14 xFIP (not adjusted for park or league, mind you) holds up, it would be his best xFIP as a starter.

As for info on other players mentioned in trade rumors (though not necessarily actual trade proposals), small sample size rules in full effect:

Phil Hughes -- As I alluded to at the top, he just went on the DL. Injury problems could help explain his rather wretched start to the season. Long-term, I still think he'll be a good pitcher, but I think the biggest knock on him in the off-season was the potential for injury, and this doesn't help.

Ian Kennedy -- 5.88 xFIP, more walks than strikeouts. Yikes. He was projected by PECOTA to have a ~4.30 ERA, and ZiPS had him at 4.38...something seems weird here. I'm willing to call this a small sample size mirage for now.

Jon Lester -- 5.11 xFIP, more walks than strikeouts. PECOTA had him projected for a ~5.30 ERA, ZiPS had him projected for a ~5.00 ERA. I still don't see what the big deal is. He's just slightly less overrated than Glen Perkins as far as I can tell.

Philip Humber -- 4.5 K/G, 3.8 BB/G, 0.7 HR/G for Rochester. Looks like he would be a total disaster in the majors right now with that line, since you'd figure the K/G to go down some, the BB/G to go up some, and the HR/G to go way up, since major league hitters have a lot more power than minor league hitters.

Kevin Mulvey -- 8.7 K/G, 3.2 BB/G, 0.3 HR/G for Rochester. (Roughly a 2.70 FIP.) Perhaps performing better than any non-Santana pitcher mentioned in Santana trade rumors, Mulvey has gotten off to a very good start in AAA. Projected to have a ~5.00 major league ERA this year by PECOTA, I wouldn't be surprised if Mulvey has just as good of a major league career as Jon Lester, if not better.

Justin Masterson -- 11.4 K/G, 3.3 BB/G, 0.0 HR/G for Pawtucket. Has been called up to the Red Sox and made one start. Masterson's right there with Mulvey--probably a little ahead of him--for early season performance. Long-term, I'd guess he has similar value to Mulvey and Lester.

Deolis Guerra -- Still pitching in High A. Still really young.

Melky Cabrera -- Hitting a robust .299/.370/.494, for an 8.7 VORP, which would be the best VORP on our offense.

Jacoby Ellsbury -- .280/.396/.440, for a 7.6 VORP, which would also be the best VORP on our offense.

Carlos Gomez -- .265/.279/.373, for a 1.9 VORP, which would also be the best VORP on our offense which is the 5th-best VORP on our offense. Okay, got a little carried away there. Now, VORP does take into account his stolen bases, so no giving him extra credit there, but he seems to be playing at least average defense in the field. If there was just one problem with the Twins in April (and I count more than one problem) Gomez was not that problem.

He's struck out 24% of the time he's stepped to the plate, which is a lot of strikeouts. But, for a little bit of context, he's not anywhere near the league lead in that category. Of 279 hitters with 50 or more PA, he ranks 27th in most strikeouts per PA. Of 234 hitters with 75 or more PA, he ranks 22nd in most strikeouts per PA. Some guys ahead of him on the list (and their K-rate):

34% -- Mark Reynolds
32% -- Ryan Howard
30% -- Jack Cust
29% -- Carlos Pena
27% -- Jack Hannahan
26% -- Jim Thome
25% -- Richie Sexson
25% -- Bill Hall
24% -- Jason Varitek

Meanwhile, Brendan Harris has been striking out at a nearly-as-awful 22% rate and no one seems to have noticed. It's clear that to succeed with a high strikeout rate, you've gotta have some power, and I think Gomez really might develop that power. His ISO is just as good as Cuddyer's so far this season, and the only regulars hitting for more power are Morneau and Kubel. (Certainly he's shown more power then Delmon Young.)

Anyway, I'm getting a bit off on a tangent. The trade really doesn't look any different today than it did when we made it. I still would have probably preferred Hughes/Cabrera/stuff (especially if 'stuff' was halfway decent), but I'm not really sure what was being offered, and what we wound up with probably won't turn out to be a lot worse than that, and could turn out to be better. There's a lot of risk involved with trying to predict the future.

Better Know A Citizen – SBG

Andrew June 9, 2007, at 10:29 am 7 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired) , , , , , ,

colbert.jpgInspired by The Colbert Report's "Better Know A District", I bring you "Better Know A Citizen". This is just a fun little thing to get know each other better. It's a mix of serious questions and some goofy ones. To kick it all off, our fearless leader himself, SBG. Email me at sbg-bkac at hotmail.com or SBG if you would like to be featured. I'll be posting new ones during the day of the second game of each series. Don't go answering these for yourself in the comments, or else the series will come to a screeching halt.

Name: SBG
Hometown: SBGville
Sports Allegiances: Minnesota Twins, Minnesota T-Wolves (why, I ask myself) NDSU Bison. (I don't really consider myself a Vikings fan anymore)
Favorite Book: Crime and Punishment
Favorite Baseball Movie: I don't know. I liked Field of Dreams and Bull Durham.
Favorite Non-baseball Movie: Really, I'm not good at picking my favorites. I can't think of a favorite movie. So knowing that I'm not someone who can easily pick a favorite is knowing something about me.
Favorite Food & Drink: Pizza and beer.
Favorite TV Show(s): Twins baseball (preferably with the sound off). Countdown with Keith Olberman. The Daily Show.
Favorite Twins Player, historically: Killer. Although, he was pretty much washed up by the time I was old enough to know better. Carew. Puck.
Favorite Twins Player, currently: Johan Santana
Best Twins Memory: Here are some highlights in particular order.

  1. Watching the final out of the 1987 World Series with my college buddies.
  2. Driving around SBGville with my dad and listening to the last game before the 1994 strike. It was Hrbek's last game. The Twins won 17-7. Puckett hit a grand slam and a three run homer. Hrbek came up three times with the bases loaded, but couldn't hit a home run. It was a bittersweet game, because everyone knew it was Hrbek's last game.
  3. Attending my first game. Eddie Bane made his major league debut. The Twins scored three in the bottom of the eighth to go ahead 3-1, but coughed up the lead in the ninth and lost 5-4.
  4. 1991

Favorite Sport to Play: Basketball. I was a much, much better basketball player than I was a baseball player.
Favorite Sport to Watch: Baseball, of course.
If either of the previous two questions was answered "baseball", what is your second choice: I like to watch basketball.
If I could live anywhere in the world, I'd live in: a much warmer climate. I'd like to live on an island.
Who would win in a fight and why - bear vs. tiger? ninja vs. pirate?: Tiger wins. The Bear had a great game, but I think that Tiger is better. That 1986 Masters, though, whew. That was something. Wait a second. This isn't a golf question is it?
If I was commissioner for a day, I'd: revamp the schedule. This unbalanced schedule is crap.
If I had Terry Ryan's job for a day, I'd: call every general manager in baseball and ask them which position players they'd be willing to trade and what their asking price is.
SBG - great on-line magazine, or greatest on-line magazine? Greatest. Of course.
If given the chance, would you sky dive? Bungee Jump? Sky dive, maybe. Bungee? Nah.
Favorite Ballpark (except the Dome, of course): Including the dome, my favorite park is Wrigley. Too bad the Cubs play there.
First MLB Game: See above.

Well, there we have it. I hope we all feel like we know a bit more about the man, the myth, the legend - SBG. Remember to throw your name in the hat if you want to play, and we'll get your "interview" lined up.