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The Surging Astros

July 27, 2009 in Chad Gaudin, Daniel Gettinger, other teams with 1 Comment

by Daniel Gettinger

Yes, this is a blog primarily about the San Diego Padres.  Recently though, a friend of mine from Houston asked me to “write a blog post about the surging Astros.”  To be perfectly honest, I had not even noticed the Astros had been winning ball games, but I’ll oblige and touch on the Astros.  Unfortunately for my friend, I don’t have anything promising to report.

As of this moment, the Astros are 50-48.  Only two games behind both the Cubs and Cardinals.  They trail the wildcard leading Rockies by 3.5 games.  Compared to  preseason expectations (PECOTA had the Astros pegged for 66.6 wins), this has been a surprisingly good season for Astros fans.  They have certainly had more fun than Padres fans have had.  That said, the Astros are not a legitimate 50 win team.  They have been outscored by 28 runs, and have an expected win/loss record of 46-52.

The Astros biggest problem is they have very little talent on the roster.  Berkman and Pence are good. Carlos Lee can hit.  And Tejada had had a surprisingly solid season.  But other than those players, the Astros have very little in the way of position players.

Geoff Blum, Kaz Matsui, and Jeff Keppinger have all received more than 200 plate appearances.  The team’s bench is nearly non-existent.  The Astros have little lineup depth, and quite frankly, one of their “stars” is incredibly overrated.  Carlos Lee has essentially given back all the runs he has generated with his bat by playing terrible (-7.8 runs below average) defense at a corner outfield spot.

The starting pitching is not fantastic either.  Roy Oswalt leads the staff, and is still a good pitcher. Just not great.  He has a 3.80 FIP, exactly the same mark he posted in 2008.  Wandy Rodriguez has been a nice surprise, posting a 2.72 ERA.  But his peripherals, while good, are not 2.72 ERA good.  Lets play the player A/player B game…

Player A: 8.38 K/9, 3.01 BB/9, 0.93 HR/9, 3.61 FIP

Player B: 8.97 K/9, 4.66 BB/9, 0.63 HR/9, 3.67 FIP

Player A has better control than player B, but strikes out less batters (albeit barely), and gives up more homeruns.  Player A is Wandy Rodriguez.  Player B is Chad Gaudin.  Yup, Wandy Rodriguez is essentially Chad Gaudin.  Wandy has gotten lucky this year.  Chad has been somewhat unlukcy.

Mike Hampton, Brian Moehler, and Russ Ortiz round out the rotation.  Um, yeah.  Can’t say I have a lot of faith in any of those guys.  At best Hampton is a league average pitcher.  Moehler and Ortiz are not even that.  The Astro’s starting pitching mirrors the team’s bats.  The top 40% is solid.  The bottom 60% is pretty bad.

The bullpen has been good.  Jose Valverde has returned from an injury, and has done a capable job in the closer’s role. Letroy Hawkins and Chris Sampson are both enjoying good seasons as well.  Even lesser known players such as Tim Byrdak and Alberto Arias have done a nice job when called upon.

The bullpen may be the Astro’s strength, but a good bullpen is not going to make up for the rest of the team’s flaws.  The Astros lack depth in both their lineup and their starting rotation.  The Astros are overachieving, and will not make the playoffs this season.  As George Zimmer says: “I guarantee it”…

The Hairston Trade

July 7, 2009 in Daniel Gettinger, other teams, trades with 5 Comments

by Daniel Gettinger

Yesterday (5 July 2009), the Padres traded Scott Hairston to the Oakland Athletics for minor league relievers Ryan Webb and Craig Italiano, as well as a player to be named later.  Because Kevin Towers suggested the PTBNL “could be the key element of the trade for the Padres,” and at least one of the possible PTBNL supposedly has some major league experience, there are rumblings that the PTBNL will either be Sean Gallagher or Dana Eveland.

If the player to be named turns out to be Gallagher, I love the deal.  If it is Eveland, I don’t love it or hate it. If the PTBNL is somebody entirely different, then I will reserve judgement until the deal is completed.

Because teams make trade decisions at the margin, that is, they look to the future rather than the past, lets first take a stab at Hairston’s future worth to the A’s.

Hairston is pretty good.  When he plays.  All too often Hairston is injured or sitting out because he does not hit righties very well.  He is not a guy that can be expected to give you 600 quality plate appearances, but Dave Cameron thinks Hairston is worth 2-3 WAR per season, and I think that’s about right.  Last season in 326 PA, Hairston was 1.8 wins above replacement.  This season, he is already at 2.2 WAR in 197 PA, but is probably hitting a bit over his head.  Hairston is not eligible for free agency until after 2011, so yeah he is pretty valuable.

From what I have read, Webb is a bullpen arm, and Italiano, although currently starting in single-A, is probably destined for the pen as well.  Neither are top prospects, and neither have fabulous minor league stats.  It will be nice if one or both turns out to be productive members of the Padres’ bullpen for a few years, but I am not counting on either of them to do much in the majors.

If Sean Gallagher is part of the deal, I will be ecstatic.  Last season, he played for both the Cubs and the A’s, and compiled 1.4 WAR in 115 innings.  His average fastball sits around 92 mph, and he also throws a decent slider, cutter, and change.  His minor league record is very solid, as he has struck out a lot of players, without walking many or giving up many homeruns.  At only 23 years old, and with only a little over 1 year of major league service time, Gallagher alone would be a great return for Hairston.

I am less thrilled with the prospect of receiving Dana Eveland.  Throughout his professional career (minors and pros), Eveland has walked too many batters while striking out too few.  Last year, Eveland threw 168 innings in the big leagues, and had a very respectable 4.09 FIP, but his 4.13 BB/9 that season stands out as a bit of a red flag.  In addition, his 2008 0.54 HR/9 seems a bit lower than he can sustain, and his stuff (88-90 mph fastball) is not overwhelming.

Eveland will probably be an adequate back of the rotation starter, but I do not see a lot of upside.  Like Gallagher, Eveland only has a little over a year of major league service time, so he would provide solid value to the Padres.  Combined with the full 6 years of team control the Padres will have with Webb and Italiano, this would probably be a fair, albeit non-impact type of trade.

Of course, the player to be named could be someone entirely different.  If it is, I would expect the player to project somewhere between Eveland and Gallagher.  We’ll have to wait and see.

As it is, I don’t mind the trade.  Hairston will be decent and relatively cheap for the next few years, but the Padres are acquiring 3 players with zero to minimal major league service time.  Two of those players (Webb and the player to be named) are probably close to major league ready.  If the PTBNL turns out to be Gallagher, the Padres will have gotten an amazing deal.  I truly believe Gallagher will be more valuable to the Padres over the next 4-5 years than Hairston will be over the next 2.  If the player to be named is someone like Dana Eveleland, then the Padres will need to hope one of the two relievers positively contributes in the majors.  If that happens, there is no reason the trade cannot be at least a wash, even offering a bit of upside.  In either case, the trade is not, as Dave Cameron suggests, an “Easy win for Oakland.”

Trevor Hoffman’s One Pitch Save

June 30, 2009 in Daniel Gettinger, other teams, Trevor Hoffman with 2 Comments

by Daniel Gettinger

Yesterday, against the Mets, Trevor Hoffman earned his 18th save of the season.  He did so by throwing only one pitch.

When the bottom of the ninth inning began, the Brewers were leading the Mets 10-3.  Brewer’s reliever Carlos Villanueva retired the first batter he faced, but then got into some serious trouble by allowing the following sequence of hits to the next five batters: Double, Double, Homer, Single, Infield Single.

Queue the bells.

Hoffman entered what was now a 10-6 game, with runners on first and second with one out.  Brian Schneider swung at Hoffman’s first pitch, and grounded into a 6-3 double play to end the game.

I am pretty sure Hoffman is not the first reliever to record a one pitch save.  It might not even be his first career one pitch save.  But it is still pretty cool.  And certainly more interesting than anything that happened in last night’s Padres game.

The Best Thing about the Seattle Series: Watching Big Russ

June 26, 2009 in Daniel Gettinger, other teams, San Diego Padres with 1 Comment

by Daniel Gettinger

If you think I gush too much about Chad Gaudin, you should have heard me discussing Russell Branyan a few years back.  He batted 0.197 for the Padres in ’07, but I liked to point out the very reasonable (at least for that batting average) 0.748 OPS.  I told everyone who would listen that all Russ needed was consistent playing time.  Most thought I was crazy.  To this day, I am still heckled by my friends about my weird Russell Branyan obsession.

This year though, it is me doing the laughing.  Branyan is having a career year, and the media has picked up on it.  The thing is, Branyan is not doing all that much differently.  For his career, Branyan has walked 12.4% of the time.  This year: 13.3%.  His line drive, ground ball, and fly ball rates are all almost exactly the same as his career numbers.  So is his HR/FB rate.  The only noticeable difference is a K% that is significantly lower than his career mark, but almost identical to his 2008 mark.

This season, Branyan has an OPS 1.009, a high mark for sure, but not one that is all that shocking to me.  He has only been to the plate 263 times.  Branyan has a career OPS of 0.832.  We expect players with a 0.832 OPS to occasionally string together a couple hundred great plate appearances.

Nick Swisher is one of Branyan’s closest comparable according to Baseball Reference.  Swisher’s career OPS is 0.812.  His best season was in 2007, when he finished with an OPS of 0.836.  He started that season much like Branyan has in 2009.  In Swisher’s first 204 plate appearances (I am using 204 just because the numbers are easily accessible via split data), he had a 0.433 OBP and a 0.536 SLG, for an OPS of 0.969, not too different from Branyan’s 263 plate appearances in 2009.

Players do not play at their true talent levels at all time.  In 2007, Nick Swisher had a great two months before regressing.  Russell Branyan is probably in store for a similar fate.  The thing is, based on his career performance, we should not be surprised Branyan has hit as well as he has.  Performance is highly variable. Sometimes good hitters have a great year.  Even more often, good hitters have great half years.

WBC

March 7, 2009 in other teams with 1 Comment

by Myron Logan

The Dominican Republic, featuring guys like Hanley Ramirez, David Ortiz, and Pedro Martinez, just lost to the Netherlands in their opening game. Quite the upset! The U.S. plays Canada at 2 PM (eastern) and Puerto Rico plays Panama at 5, both games on ESPN2. The night cap is Venezuela vs. Italy at 8 on MLB Network.

I am a fan of the tournament simply because I get to see meaningful games in March, after not really seeing any of them over the winter. Spring Training is baseball, obviously, but there’s something just not right about watching a game in which both teams do not really care if they win or lose. It’s just doesn’t have the feel of a real game. I think it’s safe to say that everyone cares about winning in the WBC.

Anyway, feel free to chat about any of the WBC games in this thread.

fwiw, I saw the last inning of Pedro Martinez’s 3 inning performance today, and he looked pretty good. The changeup appeared to be really fooling guys.

Couple of good links:

Patriot on the WBC
Clay Davenport’s WBC odds report

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