by Daniel Gettinger

By now, all of you are aware that Jake Peavy was traded to the Chicago White Sox.  The Padres received four young pitchers: Aaron Poreda, Clayton Richard, Dexter Carter, and Adam Russell.  This was a fantastic return for Peavy.  The Padres received one good prospect (Poreda), one solid but low upside prospect (Richard), and two guys who can throw hard, but are somewhat iffy to make a real contribution at the major league level (Carter and Russell).  Because Peavy is essentially going to get paid what he is worth, four players, including one good prospect, and another major league ready pitcher is a ridiculously good haul.

At Another Padres Blog, Myron estimated Peavy’s surplus value:

Myron concluded that Peavy is worth $4.5 million in surplus value over the next 3 years.  But he also warns that this type of analysis is built on a number of assumptions, so I am going to tweak the model just a bit. First, I want to include Peavy’s $4 million buyout due after the 2012 season, pushing his 2012 suprlus value down to $-5 million.  I also want to account for the fact that a win today is worth more than a win tomorrow.  Using a 10% discount rate, Peavy’s surplus value through 2012 becomes approximately $1 million.*

*Note: I decided not to adjust the FA salaries to reflect expected salary inflation.  Doing so would have required I make assumptions about the state of the economy.  Since predicting economic conditions two or three years out is an incredibly inaccurate exercise, I won’t even bother.

So, in order for this to be a good deal, the Padres only needed to acquire $1 million of surplus value.  Myron cites Victor Wang’s research on expected prospect value in declaring the bundle of prospects the Padres received to be “worth about $11 million.”

Personally, I think that may be selling Richard short.  John Sickels graded Richard a C+ prospect prior to the start of this season.  According to Wang, a C+ pitching prospect over 23 years of age is only expected to generate $1.5 million in surplus value.  But this season with the White Sox, Richard has generated $5.9 million in value, while getting paid the minimum.  For his career (’08 included), Richard has pitched 136 innings and generated $9.3 million in value.  I really think Richard is better than a C+ prospect.  On average his fastball runs about 91 mph, he strikes out 6-7 batters per nine innings, and generates a ton of ground balls (nearly 50% ground ball rate).  Ground ball pitchers are often underrated, and I think Richard might fit that mold. Considering his success this season, I feel we need to bump up his projected surplus value to at least $7 million-about that of a “grade B” pitcher.

Basically, the Padres received between $10 M and $20 M of value in return for a currently injured pitcher with a thin build, a violent delivery, and a contract that is not a bargain any more.  Yeah, the team did alright here.