Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 103: The R.A. Dickey Deal and Trading Top Prospects (With Jason Parks)

Episode Date: December 17, 2012

Ben and Sam are joined by Jason Parks for a discussion of the R.A. Dickey deal and the risks and rewards of trading top prospects.

You know, the Toronto fan base is always very nice. They don't attack or whatever, and I was like, I guess it's just because, you know, Canadians are gentle people. Good morning, and welcome to episode 103 of Effectively Wild, the Baseball Prospectus daily podcast. In New York, I am Ben Lindberg, not in Long Beach, California, the hometown of Travis Darnot, but instead from Tyler, Texas, Sam Miller is joining me tonight. Hello, Sam.

Hello. And we also have a special guest on. He's Jason Parks from Brooklyn, New York. Hello, Jason. Say hello to the internet, I guess. Yeah, thanks for having me on Tyler, Texas. What the hell are you doing there? I got a little reporting assignment that took me here. Interesting. Have you been to Tyler? Yeah.

What area of Texas is Tyler? Tyler's East Texas. It's about, what, two hours east of Dallas? Yeah, Tyler's the home of Earl Campbell. I'm not working on a story about Earl Campbell. Well, that's usually the only reason people go to Tyler. When Ben found out I was in Tyler, the first thing he asked is whether I was writing about Josh Tomlin, which is pretty impressive. Yeah.

But I'm not writing about Josh Tomlin. Probably not. Right. Tell Jason what you saw at the airport, though. I saw a near fight because a man was wearing a Steelers jersey. This is probably one of my family members. We'll swing at people wearing Steelers stuff. So today we are talking about the R.A. Dickey trade, which hasn't happened yet,

but looks like it has been agreed to in principle, at least the terms. So we have brought Jason on to talk about the deal and about the prospects that are going the other way in the deal. If you're listening to this on Monday, you can read some stuff Jason wrote about those prospects at BP. You can also read the Toronto Blue Jays' prospect rankings, which came out recently, and cover the two guys in the deal. But I guess just to start, why don't you talk a little bit about the two main guys that the Mets are getting here, Travis Darnot and Noah Syndergaard. Okay, I mean, when this first broke on Twitter, I really couldn't believe it.

I mean, you know, R.A. Dickey is, I know he has the award. I know that he has, you know, the last couple of years he's been really, really good. But, I mean, this isn't your typical pitcher. You know, it's really hard for a lot of people to get a grip on what he is and what he's going to do. So I actually thought the package would reflect that. I didn't think it was going to be this extreme. When I saw those two names, I mean, that's extreme.

I mean, that's really, really extreme. So, I mean, there's a couple ways of looking at it. I mean, they must really, really value Dickey, you know. I mean, put him in the dome and see what the knuckleball can do in the dome. Or, you know, maybe they don't think the prospects are all that hot or a combination of both but uh darnell is a is a is there the jay's best prospect i mean he is a kind of the rare uh catching prospect that can hit and receive um he's got some catch and throw skill he's got a strong arm his footwork is improved he's a he's a some catch and throw skill. He's got a strong arm. Uh, his footwork is improved.

He's a, he's a hard worker. Uh, the bat is at least average major league average and the power potential could be major league plus, and you get hit 20, 25 home runs at full maturity, which is a pretty exciting package. If you can get that behind the plate, um, which is a pretty exciting package if you can get that behind the plate. The grades will vary of whether he's going to be just a solid average regular or a first division guy or a perennial all-star, which changes everything, of course. But he's a big piece. He's a top 15 guy in baseball in the entire minors.

He's definitely a guy that I thought the Toronto was going to keep because that kind of package and six years of team control is a pretty sexy situation. But again, I guess they really, really want to win now. So he's ready right now, you think? Yeah, yeah. I think that he would have been playing at the major league level last year but he hurt his his knee um and so it's scrapped him um you know he put up a lot of crazy numbers he played in a lot of crazy environments so you kind of you can't look at his

his triple a numbers and get too excited i mean he's not going to do that at the major league level but um you know supposedly he's healthy and uh he was able to play uh went through ball and just opted not to so it's i don't think it's that big of a concern he's had some injury issues in the past with his back and with his knee so you know perhaps there's a some medical concerns but i mean i think that i think it's just kind of some minor injuries. I think he's going to be fine. And yeah, I think he's definitely ready to compete for a major league job. I mean, he may require a little bit more AAA time just to make sure that he's fully healthy. But, you know, he's got to learn to receive at the major league level.

There are certain things that you can't learn in AAA, such as how to face major league pitching. level there's certain things that you can't learn in triple a such as how to face major league pitching so um i think that he'll you know he has a good chance to come to camp and do some damage but we'll see what happens i'll definitely play at the level in 2013 um the second prospect which i was i admit i couldn't believe that he was included with darno i mean that's just from a prospect guy i mean i was like oh that's you don't see that you don't see the top two guys in the system go very often um is uh is noah cinder guard who is just a big hulking human from texas um he has he throws really hard um this is a guy who in high school was like in the 80s and he would tick up a little bit and he got to the 90s i gets into professional ball and all of a sudden you know at parts last year he's throwing 100 so this guy has tons of

arm strength it's there's some effort in the delivery it's not the the easiest cheese you'll ever see but he can routinely work anywhere from 94 to 96 he can touch a lot higher he has a feel for a breaking ball that he can throw. And he also has a changeup, which took a big step forward last year. So, I mean, he has potential to have, you know, that 7 pitch, that 7-grade pitch, and then a couple of plus secondary pitches. So high upside, I'd put him like a number 2 starter profile perhaps. So you've got the Mets top 10 coming out in a day or two at BP can

you kind of tease what this does for their system not necessarily where these guys rank but just what I mean is it it helps yeah it helps I mean because the Mets system was pretty bad um you know Zach Wheeler's a stud Zach Wheeler's a top 10 prospect in baseball. Um, definitely one of the best pitching prospects in baseball. And, uh, he's gonna, he could, he has a chance to, to do some things, uh, in New York to make him a star one because of the market and two, because of the way he pitches. I mean, he's a strikeout guy. Um, so the strikeout, a young strikeout guy in New York, he's going to do well um he'll be giving out gift baskets you know and sign balls um but you add darnell and you add cinder guard to it

well those guys automatically slot up underneath him um and all of a sudden that the system has some impact guys it went from like maybe one impact guy with a chance for a second impact guy to a you know three guys that are definitely going to be in the in the top 30 in baseball so that becomes quite an impressive system it falls off after that a great deal that matt's uh you know they haven't been very successful in latin america um they've they've had some funky drafts you get a guy like you know brandon nemo who they drafted really high, who they really like, who I really don't like that much. He's down the list. There's a lot of reliever profiles. It's just not that great. But now it's a hell of a lot better. You have

some impact potential. It's not a top tier system, but it's certainly respectable. So you wrote a little bit about the tendency to look for something wrong with a prospect when a prospect this highly ranked gets traded. Yeah. And I wrote an article about that last week, kind of looking back at previous top 10 guys who've been traded very early in their careers, in most cases before they even lose their rookie eligibility. And those guys haven't worked out quite as well as the ones who haven't been traded. But it's such a small list that it's also kind of hard to make any definitive conclusion about that. So I guess, I don't know, when you look at Darnot and Syndergaard, if there is something that, say, the Jays know that the Mets don't know

or don't know as well, I guess what would it be? With Darnot, I guess it's just the knee and the health concerns. Yeah. I mean, is this something where you even are thinking about that anymore or are you just thinking they like these guys as much as anyone does? They just really wanted to win right now. Well, I mean, I guess it comes down to that. I mean, ultimately, they really wanted to win, and that was the price.

You know, Dickey was the best available pitcher for them. Although, I mean, if you want to strip Dickey from it, I know that they think that he can perform very well in the dome. That's a big part of this um but you know if you were you could go to a lot of different teams I think and say hey how about Dernot and and Syndergaard and you could probably extract a pretty decent arm from them well maybe not a Dickey level but something that has a little bit more of a track record something that you can you feel a little bit more confident in and again maybe a lot of this is my bias against knuckleballers just because I don't know how to scout them.

It's just really difficult. But as far as your question goes, it's so complicated and all I can do is speculate because I don't have the information. I know some teams are more willing to trade prospects than other teams. A lot of it has to do with the fact if they drafted that player and really nurtured that player all the way up the chain. If you spend five years with a player, that's a pretty hefty investment, both financially and emotionally.

You get to know this kid, and you'd be less willing to part with him. Now, Darnell's already been bounced around a little bit, not a great deal, and that doesn't reflect on him. It's just they don't have that same sort of bond. And Syndergaard is still a young kid, so they haven't had too much time with him. But you do put in an investment with these players when you scout them as amateurs and grow them for years in your system. So I think you see a lot of those guys, teams are reluctant to trade those type of guys

unless there's something going on that they don't think gels with their team. Some of it's makeup. Makeup's a really big deal, and it's really hard for people on the outside of the org to really know what's going on. You can see a player at the field, you can see him hustle. You don't know know what's going on. I mean, you can see a player at the field, you can see him hustle. You don't know what's really going on. He could be dragging the team down. The team could know some things about his makeup that would prevent him from reaching his ceiling. All these kinds of things are in play. Um, outside observers,

all we can do is speculate. So, I mean, I, I really don't know. know I I talked to some people who not only scouted Darnot as a as a amateur but throughout the professional ranks and he's a good kid supposedly works hard um if anything I think it's just because they had a surplus at the position they're satisfied with the the the backstop they have um maybe there's some injury concerns maybe they don't think he's going to be a perennial all-star. They think he's just going to be more of a solid average regular. That was the price for Dickey. I mean, if you look at their roster, their roster is jacked up.

Yes. You know, that is a pretty substantial roster in a division that, you know, not to really get into it, but like who knows what the Yankees are going to do. They're losing out to the Pirates for players. The world is ending. The Red Sox are once again acquiring players that they're going to sell to the Dodgers in a few weeks. The Orioles haven't done a thing all winter.

I didn't believe in the Orioles last year. Right, neither did I. You have the Rays who're in a fire sale again. And who knows? It could be they may not be over. You know, I'm surprised that they didn't try to get price from the Rays for that package because they probably could have pulled that off. So, I mean, so we've seen Darno is almost a top 10 guy. Myers is a top 10 guy.

Bauer probably was last winter. And I don't know where he is now exactly. But are you surprised at what these guys have brought back? If someone had told you at the beginning of the offseason that the Jays would be trading Darnot and Syndergaard, and the Royals would be trading Myers, and Arizona would be trading Darnot and Syndergaard and the Royals would be trading Myers and Arizona would be trading Bauer. I mean, did you think that teams would have gotten more for these prospects? Are you surprised by the returns that they're getting? I'm surprised that they were traded in the first place because baseball was starting to transition to a point where, from a philosophical standpoint, prospects were becoming in higher demand.

They weren't trading them as much. Because of the rising cost of salaries, growing your own and having that cost-effective player meant even more. So teams weren't willing to part with lucrative packages to bring in expensive talent. This offseason has been very, very strange. I mean, you see a small market, small budget team that's on a shoestring like the Royals. They needed that pitcher, but they go ahead and they trade

a major league ready right fielder for an know an expensive starting pitcher i mean i didn't i didn't i didn't see that going i thought they were going to go the young route i thought they'd target somebody like bauer you know before they get expensive and then the dickie deal i mean again i don't i don't know how to scout dickie i don't know what he's going to do if i was running a team i'd be very hesitant to to not only give him a long contract but to trade two really, really badass prospects. But then you go back and look at the roster and you're like, OK, well, if Dickie is Dickie, I mean who knows what that even means, then it's worth it, right? I mean look, people don't – people will – they love the farm systems and I get it. But eventually you have to play your hand.

You've got to cash in a little bit because these guys don't keep their jobs just by having a good farm system. You eventually have to win at the major league level, which is the ultimate goal of baseball. It's not getting glowing reviews on prospect sites because you're really badass at drafting and development. You have to play at the major league level. You have to win. The Jays think they have a chance to win, and in that division, I think they're right.

So Brad Ancrum just put together a list of the top 10 prospects that the Jays have traded in the last six months and concludes that it's better than a lot of clubs' current top 10s. And so basically, what the Jays are showing is that prospects are more useful for putting together the team you want than actually, you know, promoting and using and waiting for them to gel together as a unit. Do you think that's part of a trend? Or is this just a one team, one year kind of a thing where the circumstances fit for them? I think that there's some pressure from ownership when it comes to the Jays about trying to win. They receive a lot of hype. There are a lot of accolades for being a really well-run organization,

at least as far as getting into the draft, taking this aggressive approach in Latin America where they're giving high bonuses to high ceiling players. They seem to target the high school arms that are boom or bust, an approach I really like. But they haven't been successful at the major league level and eventually heads get chopped. And I think that plays a lot into it. But I mean, I also think as a whole, minor league prospects, you know, we can we can glorify them, we can get romantic about them, but they're just currency, you know, and sometimes that currency you get to use at the major league level, and sometimes you use it in trade before it depreciates, and it usually will. So it's just about knowing when to move it.

You know, so I mean, and that's a really big gamble. So Sam and I speculated earlier in the winter that maybe we would see more teams trading young players just because it's easier to put a value on a prospect now that people have kind of quantified what a top 10 or a top 20 or a top 30 prospect has historically turned out to be and historically produced for his team in his team control years and that maybe now that you can look at that and put some sort of dollar value on it even though it's not, it kind of makes it easier to

put them in play and talk about trading them, whereas before they might have been untouchable. But maybe just as much as that, it's just the second wild card kind of making every team think that it's in it and within range of contention and might as well go for it. I guess that could be kind of another factor that's counteracting. I think Jeff Passan called it the fetishization of prospects recently. That's a big word for Jeff. I'm surprised he used that word. But I think the wild card angle is really smart, and I agree with it. More teams are in contention.

More teams think they have a chance to compete. Again, it comes down to the team. Again, we're looking at prospects and how they're viewed by the mainstream media, not how they're viewed by internal organizations, which is completely different. I've been privy to a few internal ranking systems. Let me tell you, it doesn't look like Baseball America, and it doesn't look like Baseball Perspectives. And, you know, they have scouts that go out and write reports on all these players,

and they try to compile them. Very rarely is it going to line up with what people outside of the industry think. Now, I think it was universally accepted that Will Myers was, you know, among the top prospects in baseball. But, you know, you don't know that for sure internally. You don't really know how the Kansas City Royals actually viewed Will Myers as far as projection goes. Now, they may have only had him pegged as, you know, a major league regular internally, you know, which is a different trade ship than the people who think that he's a slam-dunk all-star

because then it looks even more graphic when they trade him. Whereas internally, they're losing a major league regular in a corner spot, which you can find those guys. Those aren't, as I was calling them on Twitter, those aren't precious unicorns. You'll run into one. You're not going to run into a precious unicorn. I mean, I've never run into one. You're not going to run into a precious unicorn. I mean, I've never run into one. But a catcher who can hit and catch is pretty precious.

Well, I always wonder about catchers, though, because on the one hand, every team, it's hard to find catchers. Catchers are rare. They're a tremendous commodity, and every team would love to have a great one. But on the other hand, from a prospect perspective, they have a longer aging curve. And if you only get the guy for six years, you might accidentally spend three or four of them waiting for them to turn into something. And so I always wonder whether there's a wide range of opinions just on the value of catching prospects in general from organization to

organization? Absolutely. I mean, there would have to be. I mean, this is just speculation, but I would guess that some teams actually viewed him as a top 10 prospect in baseball, whereas others wouldn't touch him at all. And the reason they wouldn't touch him is because of just what you said. I mean, how much are you going to get out of him you know it's such a physically demanding position you know will the bat play off the position you know will how many games can this guy catch are there are the injury issues legit um you know there's a lot of questions that go in with a catching prospect so yeah i mean i think that there's going to be a wide range of opinion. Now, nationally, I think most people have him in the top 10 or more top 20 in baseball.

But, you know, I can't guarantee that every org would see it that way. Again, I mean, they're working with a different set of eyes where, you know, a lot of people use Google to scout or they call the team and get bullshit fed to them or whatever. But, you know, these guys are sending out teams of scouts and they're going over reports all season long. So they're working with more data and more opinion and, you know, more, you know, better educated opinion. So their lists aren't going to look like national lists. And I think that when we have these discussions, we're working with this weird kind of media idea, mainstream idea of what a prospect, where his value lies.

When in actuality, we don't really know where their value lies because we're not privy to internal data. It's not really related to this, but I asked Kevin a question last week when he came on about whether the gap between what's available publicly is wider in the stats side or the scouting side. I don't think he was sure exactly

what the bigger differential is. Do you have an opinion on whether, I guess, if you go work for a team and you see what all the brilliant math people are working on and all the hit effects and the field effects and things that we just don't have on the Internet, do you think that the gap is as wide between what the top prospect guys on the Internet who talk to scouts and talk to front office sources all the time. Do you think the gap is wider still on the scouting side just because

we don't have that firsthand knowledge of prospects and their makeup? Or I don't know, do you see it as being wider on one side or another? I do. I do. And that's a good question. I mean, I still think that it's wide. Don't get me wrong. I think the scouting between what you usually, I'm going to use usually because I think that some of it is right on the mark and some of it isn't. And that goes for everything you're going to read online,

and part of that is just because you don't have access to everything. And I think that there's a wide gap there, but I don't think it's nearly as wide as the data uh side of of major league baseball because as you said they are working with with tools that people on the outside just don't have access to right have been few people have understanding of in general um i'm not gonna i don't want to put down scouts by any means, because I mean, I'm, I'm really good friends with them. It's, it's, it's something that I feel very strongly about, but these aren't the same type of minds that are usually the guys who were doing the data

procurement. And at the, at the major league level, I mean, these guys are wizard minds, you know, and they're, and they're they're working on some things that people on the outside very few people would have the ability to handle right now from a scouting perspective it's not it's not that it's difficult but if you watch enough games and you get and you are taught what to look for eventually you're going to figure that out that's something that you can learn through observation and time. Now that's advanced mathematics is not something that you can just learn through observation. I mean, this is something that it's, it's very step oriented. You know, you need to establish a base and learn, you know, all the methods and scouting. You can

just sit at a field and just pick an old man's brain and you can learn what to look for. These, these advanced formulas, they're, they're dealing with a very high level of intelligence that, you know, again, I think it requires, you know, education. And that's not to knock the scout guys. I'm saying, I've just, I've run across some of the data guys. Um, I've had beers with some of the data guys and it's awkward beers. I mean, it's a very awkward time, but they're very, very, very smart, you know, and they're, they're dealing with things that I can't even begin to understand because I've never actually seen, you know, I've seen baseball games. You know, I can learn something new from a scout every time I watch a baseball game, but I have access to a baseball field. You know, I don't have access from a scout every time I watch a baseball game, but I have access to a baseball field.

You know, I don't have access to some of the data that these teams can spit out because I don't have access to, you know, to field effects and all that kind of stuff. And the weird velocities that come off of bats and this kind of stuff that Trackman does. Yeah. You know, they're full of all that. And they have guys who not only, you know, know how to read that, they know how to, you know, how to use it. Which, I mean, and when those guys get together with the scout guys and they come up with a plan, I mean, there's not, look, not every organization in baseball is dealing with stuff that's that high tech. But some of them are. Some of them are dealing with some really crazy stuff right now, like looking at injury issues, injury prevention.

That's the next wave. And that stuff is crazy shit, man. I mean, that's really, really funky stuff. So that's the next wave of inside baseball crazy stuff is the injury forecasting. That's the next stuff. All right. I guess we're done here. Sam, you have anything else? Heck no. Okay. So you can read what Jason and I wrote about the Dickey trade,

which hasn't happened yet, which is... I hope it happens. Yeah, we've put enough time into it. So that should be up at BP on Monday. You can read about the Mets top 10 list very soon in a couple days. Also at BP, and at some point Jason will circle back and re-rank the Blue Jays prospects to see who crept into the list now that Darnot and Syndergaard are not on it. crept into the list now that Darnot and Syndergaard are not on it.

And you can send us questions for our Wednesday email show at podcast at baseballperspectives.com. We're done. This was episode 103. We will be back tomorrow.