Padres bring back Kevin Correia
December 13th, 2009 | Published in Myron Logan, Sabermetrics, San Diego Padres, contracts | 6 Comments
by Myron Logan
There were some rumblings that the Padres were going to non-tender Kevin Correia, arguably their most valuable pitcher from a year ago, allowing him to become a free agent. However, the Pads reached a one year deal with Correia yesterday worth “about $3.6 million,” according to Corey Brock. Let’s take a look at some of Correia’s numbers, courtesy of FanGraphs:
| Year | Inn. | ERA | FIP | xFIP | tRA |
| 2006 | 69.7 | 3.49 | 3.52 | 4.41 | 4.17 |
| 2007 | 101.7 | 3.45 | 4.06 | 4.57 | 3.95 |
| 2008 | 110 | 6.05 | 5.10 | 5.11 | 6.54 |
| 2009 | 198 | 3.91 | 3.81 | 4.21 | 4.01 |
In 2006 and ‘07, Correia was primarily a reliever with the Giants. 2008 was his first year as a full time starter, and obviously it did not go well. His fastball velocity, according to BIS, dropped about 1-2 MPH, perhaps contributing to the poor results. His strikeout rate declined and his homer rate increased, however, his BABiP was an abnormally high .340 – well above his career norm, which usually hovers around .300.
Last year with the Padres, Correia regained a couple of miles per hour on his fastball (and the rest of his pitches), saw an increase in his strikeout rate, a decrease in walks and homers, and put forth an all-around solid, if not spectacular, year. He was worth 2.4 Wins Above Replacement, by FanGraphs’ calculations, which easily led Padres starters.
Daniel was right on the money when he said that, “non-tendering Kevin Correia makes no sense.” It is not that Correia is a great pitcher; he is just too good of a player to let leave for nothing, and as Daniel says, he is not yet expected to be paid more than he is worth. Let’s take a closer look, though.
The projection systems are pegging Correia as about a 3.90-4.10 ERA pitcher next year, with a decrease in innings pitched. If we, somewhat conservatively, call him a 1.5 WAR pitcher, how much should he earn? Well, on the free agent market, if we put the $/WAR value at $4.4 million, we’d expect Correia to make somewhere around $6.6 million this year. If we use Tango’s 40-60-80 rule, which says a player in his last year of arbitration-eligibility should make 80% of his expected free agent value, then Correia should be paid ~$5.3 million ($6.6m * .80). That is assuming our 1.5 WAR projection; obviously that number goes up if we raise that projection, or down if we lower it.
Anyway, this appears to be a good deal for San Diego. They bring back one of their better pitchers at a reasonable price, and it is only a one year commitment. Like Daniel said, there is little risk involved here. Rather than losing a productive player and receiving nothing in return, the Padres retain Correia’s services for another year, and hold onto a potential chip who should bring some interest on the trade market.
December 14th, 2009 at 12:07 pm (#)
Myron-I agree with you completely. One thing we really shouldn’t discount (and you mentioned this in your post) is that Correia could be very interesting to a number of contenders at the trade deadline. He is cheap, only under contract for one year, and could fill a hole at the back-end of the rotation for a good team with poor rotational depth. In the playoffs, a team could use him either as a starter, or in the bullpen. Chad Gaudin was that type of player last year, and Yankee fans seem plenty happy with his production down the stretch.
December 14th, 2009 at 12:17 pm (#)
Correia should be worth considerably more than the 100K we got from the Yankees for Gaudin.
Unless he has a great first half, which is possible but not very likely, we’ll get a lower return the longer we wait. Few teams are all that interested in picking up a back of the rotation (generously a mid-rotation) starter in late July. A lot of his value is throwing league-average innings the four months before then.
December 14th, 2009 at 12:25 pm (#)
Tom-I agree that Correia would be worth more now than at the deadline, but to some extent, that is true of all players. I was not suggesting Correia would be worth merely 100K, just that teams may be interested in him. For example, last season the Phillies signed Pedro, who at this point in his career is no better than Correia. Also, I would argue that more teams should have been interested in Gaudin. If he could contribute to a stacked Yankees team, he almost certainly could have helped a number of other teams out.
December 14th, 2009 at 12:40 pm (#)
At the deadline, some teams tend to overvalue players with the perceived ability to “put them over the top.” That’s part of what happened with Pedro and it won’t happen with Correia. He’s not a front-line SP, he’s not a slugger, he’s not a shut-down reliever, and he’s not a gritty veteran. Correia won’t induce the kind of emotional valuation that leads teams to overpay.
December 14th, 2009 at 10:07 pm (#)
Myron and Daniel,
Thanks for the articles on Correia. I agree with you that signing him was the right thing to d for the Padres both on a performance and a PR basis.
Tom - the interest level in Correia come the trading deadline will depend on how well he does in the first 4 months. Last season Correia improved substantially in the 2nd half to post an ERA under 3 in August - October. (3.26 after the All Star break)
If he does that in the first 4 months of the year there will be a lot of interest in him at the break next year.
December 14th, 2009 at 11:06 pm (#)
Correia COULD increase his trade value, absolutely. But it probably won’t be by all that much, because he’s not the kind of dominating arm that makes GMs salivate. He’s more in the Jeff Suppan - Jeff Weaver - Kent Bottenfield category. His similarity score on Baseball Reference is a who’s who of forgotten journeymen, including Mark Grant and Brian Boehringer. A good half-season will make him more valuable, but GMs aren’t going to mistake him for a frontline starter.
He could also get hurt — he has an injury history — or be ineffective — which he’s been before. It’s a risk holding onto him, although it’s hard to say how big because we don’t know what anyone’s offering. But a lot of teams are looking at their rotations right now and seeing 200+ inning gaps. They’ll pay to fix that problem. We have no idea what they’ll pay for 2 months of Correia 8 months from now.
When we moved Greg Maddux, first-ballot Hall of Famer, to a Dodger team fighting for its life in 2008, we got a couple of low A prospects. I’d be surprised if a Correia deadline deal brought back players as good as Watt and Perez, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we received better players, maybe even somebody major-league ready, if we moved him before opening day.
Just to be clear, I don’t want to trade him because I think our other rotation options are so good. Many of them will probably be looking up at league-average. But we don’t have a very good chance to compete in 2010 anyway, and if Correia can bring in a piece or two who might contribute to the next good Padre team, pull the trigger. 180 league-average innings for the 2010 squad probably (not certainly, but probably) won’t mean that much.