Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 175: Brian Roberts’ Injury, Baserunners Passing Baserunners, and the Pros and Cons of Trade Speculation

Episode Date: April 5, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss the latest injury to Brian Roberts, Evan Longoria running by Ben Zobrist, and the speculation about a Profar-for-Taveras trade.

Good morning and welcome to episode 175 of Effectively Wild, the BaseballPerspectives.com daily podcast. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg. Ben, do you know how many... You could put that.com in every now and then, just so people know how to find the site. Some people are not as internet savvy as others. Some people might be in a situation where their grandchildren are playing this podcast for them. They record it on a tape. Do you know who won 175 games in the majors? No.

Derek Lowe. And nobody else. Why pass 10s? Well, no, that's actually why. If he wins another game, nobody will have won 175 games. Exactly, on the dot. It will... Interesting.

Most numbers, pretty much every... Well, not pretty much. Most numbers are represented, but 175 is dangerously close to being unrepresented. Although Mark Burley has 174 and Bartolo Colon is 171. Colon could conceivably end at 175, and so too could Kevin Millwood, who, unless I missed his official retirement, needs six and needs to stop after six more,

which is conceivable. Javier Vasquez, if he ever came through and played one more year, he has 165. So 175, Oswalt, 163. It's not necessarily going to be unoccupied, but right now it's in danger. Well, by then we will be long past 175. We will be at 176. Do you know who won 176? No, I do not. Frank Viola.

Oh, okay. All right. We're going to talk briefly about three topics today, actually. We skipped from one to three. We're not doing our usual two, and we're not doing our recently usual one. We're doing three. So do you want to talk about three topics? Okay. All right. So mine, just a brief one. Brian Roberts got hurt yesterday, Thursday. He stole second, he slid into second headfirst, and he pulled a hamstring, assuming at this point that he will go on the disabled list. I don't know if that's been announced yet. So that was sort of sad because Brian Roberts, he was off to a decent start in a couple games,

and he has gotten hurt. I guess it is now four years in a row. He has played 59 games in 2010, 39 games in 2011, 17 games in 2012. So that is sad for Brian Roberts. But when I did a lot of interviews about the Orioles

for some reason this spring, people kept asking me about the Orioles. And every time they did, I would try to go out of my way to say nice things about the Orioles so as to kind of counter the stereotype of a stat head who hates the Orioles. But I always kind of wondered why they hadn't done more at certain positions, particularly second base, where they went into the season

basically counting on Brian Roberts, it seemed like. So now, assuming Roberts is out for a while, basically they're down to Ryan Flaherty and Alexi Kassia at second base. They have prospect Jonathan Scope, but probably would not use him now or would not want to use him so soon. Wait, why not? Why not? I don't know. I mean, I don't think he's... I mean, I guess you could, but... Well, are you saying he's the best option or he's not the best option? Probably not the best option or he's not the best option um probably not the best i mean well he might be the best option just because the other option is alexi

cassia but uh he's a 21 year old who has not played in triple a yet uh and hit 245, 324, 386 in AA last year. So that's not really an inspiring option right now. So I wondered, I don't know, it kind of confused me that they went into the season seemingly depending on Brian Roberts, and now the very predictable thing has happened with Brian Roberts, and they're kind of left without an acceptable starter at that position. Yeah, well, I mean, there wasn't a lot of options for one thing. I mean, it was a pretty gruesome crop of second baseman. It's sort of a kind of, I mean, right now the position itself is very weak.

It is arguably the weakest position in baseball. And the free agent class was basically Marco Scudero and Jeff Kepinger, right? Yeah. I mean, I guess there was like Kelly Johnson would have been better than Alexi Kassia. I mean, you can always make a trade or something. But yes, it is weak and there weren't a lot of available options but I feel like if you have Brian Roberts and you were expecting to compete, I don't know, you don't count on Brian Roberts.

Yeah, no. Brian Roberts, it's a sort of – well, I've never taken – I've never been that sad about injuries. I'm not a person who thinks that it's a sort of, well, I've never taken, I've never been that sad about injuries. I'm not a person who thinks that it's immoral to root for an injury on an opposing team. Yeah, that has never bothered me. So long as it's not a kind of a career threat. Yeah, or even really, I mean, anything that ended his career would be sad. But, I mean, you know, if a guy misses six weeks with a hamstring pull, that seems like all fun and games. But I felt genuine sadness watching Brian Roberts lay on the ground after a completely normal slide.

At one point, I thought, man, what an unlucky guy. He's incredibly lucky in life. At one point, I thought, oh, man, what an unlucky guy. I was going to bring that up. He's incredibly lucky in life. I have to kind of remind myself that he is neither lucky nor unlucky in a way. Well, I was going to bring up the fact that there was, I don't know, someone who said that he was, I was just reading a story about it, and there were comments by Orioles fans, and they were saying he's so snakeb snake bit and he's had all these freak injuries and it's like freak injury he stole second base and pulled a hamstring that is what injury prone hitters or position players do they pull they pull things because yeah the the uh the the imminence of an injury for a guy like that, though, is it's kind of crazy how most guys are able to do things without getting hurt.

I mean, all he did is he ran. I assume that he ran every day this winter. He woke up and worked out for three hours, and he never got hurt in those three hours of workouts. I've watched ballplayers work out on their own. it's strenuous you know and then he went to he went to spring training he played every day he did batting practice he threw baseballs and none of those things broke him and then like basically the fourth second that he's he's playing in a real game he gets hurt it's it's uh you know it kind of reminds me of uh when juan gonzalez uh got hurt on his first at bat after a few years of of this sort of injury stuff he got hurt on in his first

at bat running to first and you just think how many times has he sprinted 90 feet in the last four months yeah um i don't know there's something about i'm sure once you're in a game uh there is something whether it's i don't know the elevated tension level is somehow reflected in your muscles and the tightness of them. Well, there's an unpredictability to baseball that I think leads to a lot of injuries. And it, I mean, obviously he was just running from first to second. So there's nothing inherently unpredictable about that. And yet it is different than if you're in practice, if you're, you know, before a game running from first to second, where you just, you know, you're starting at first and you're ending at second and there's nothing in between.

In a game, there are things, I mean, there are nine other guys in opposition to you who are going to do things to try to get you out. And it doesn't seem like there's a lot that can happen there, but there is a throw coming out and there is a defender blocking the bag. And it's just slightly in doubt. And that's, I think, what his body can't handle. It's the slight improvisation required to play the game. 2007, 2008, 2009, Brian Roberts played 156 games, 155 games, and 159 games. And he had one year where he hit 50 doubles and led the league in doubles and had a 90 OPS plus.

And then one, two, three, four, five years later, he hit 56 doubles and led the league. But, I mean, how do you hit 50 doubles with a 90 OPS plus? You know what Brian Roberts is for me? Brian Roberts will always be the guy who implanted in my head the idea that doubles turn into home runs. And that principle has led me so far astray in my life. Like, in my mind, Coco Crisp should be hitting like 29 home runs now because once he had a big double season. But in my head, Brian Roberts was, like, the patron saint of doubles turned to home runs. He kept hitting doubles, and then he added some home runs.

350 double seasons. He's got to be the only active player with 350 double seasons, right? Yeah, maybe. I would be willing to bet that. But, I 90 ops plus with 50 doubles that's crazy all right all right second topic quick one uh evan longoria passed uh benzo well i it doesn't look to me like he passed benzo brist on the base pads today but he was ruled to have passed Ben Zobrist on the base pads today and called out cost the Rays a shot at the game in the ninth inning

and it just I want to bring this up it because until this play it never occurred to me how kind of dumb and disappointing the rule is that players can't pass each other on the base pads why did baseball decide to do that and how much more fun would it be if they could all run with each other fast guys would

never be blocked two guys could steal at the same time uh you know fast fast runner could could pass the other guy there could be three guys wreaking havoc on the defense because then think about that i mean it could be a legitimate strategy for sowing confusion um but i mean if nothing else maybe why it's a rule uh but that's disappointing to me why is it a rule i mean what i wonder what the principle is because because baseball we're told by poets and authors and political pundits, is a perfect game that has been sent down from God with every part in place perfectly. But in that case, though, what is the moral principle that is held in place by the one base runner, one base idea? I don't know. I do kind of enjoy the sight of a pileup also

when you have two fast guys stuck behind a really slow guy and they're both trailing him by like six inches as they all score at the same time. That happens every now and then, which I enjoy. But I agree, it would be kind of fun if they could pass each other yeah so far as i can tell the only good thing that comes out of the the rule as it is is that uh you get that visual of the the gas house gorillas marching across home plate but at the expense of i would say thousands upon thousands of gifts uh Well, we should do some research about the origins of that rule.

See if it was inspired by a particular play or player or if there's some technicality that we are not considering. Yeah, I mean baseball, as far as I can tell, is not a metaphor sport. Like a lot of sports are metaphor sports for various aspects of war or whatever. But baseball is not a metaphor sport. So I don't think that the idea of holding a base would have any kind of deeper meaning that would prevent two people from holding it simultaneously. Well, I guess so. Maybe it's not big enough for two people.

Brian Roberts also walked 89 times one year. I mean, he was really a heck of a player. Yeah, he was very good. Very good, and yet in his entire career, received MVP votes just one time and finished 18th because he was playing for a bad team. All right, shall we move on? Yes.

Last thing is an idea that has been uh on the internet for a little bit and burst through into reality i would say um a couple days ago uh when well uh i don't know how to introduce this topic the idea is jerickson profar for oscar taveras and uh whether it would make sense the cardinals gm was asked about it by jim bowden and didn't rule it out the rangers gm was not asked about it by jim bowden and also did not rule it out uh so as far as anybody can tell this trade might happen um but um dave cameron of the internet wrote about it today to look at whether it made sense from a thought experiment perspective. Grant Brisby wrote about it a month ago to see if it made sense and to just sort of bask

in how fun it is to think about. And I wrote about it a little bit by accidental proxy a year ago when people were speculating about Mike Trout and Bryce Harper and whether they would make sense as parts of a trade for each other. And at the time, in the same way that Profar and Tavares seemed to suit the other team's needs better than their own, you could have made the case quite convincingly, I think, that Trout and Harper suited the other team's needs better than their own. And so I just wonder, first off, what do you think about trade speculation?

I don't engage in it often because I feel like I'm not very good at it. I don't come up with creative trade scenarios. I feel like I don't have the command of every organization top to bottom that would enable me to make intelligent trade scenarios. So it just doesn't occur to me all that often. Occasionally it does, but I don't know.

I feel like there are many more productive uses of my baseball thinking time than coming up with hypothetical trade scenarios that almost certainly won't happen. So Tavares for pro-far is kind of fun to think about and not completely far-fetched. So I see why that speculation has arisen. But I don't know, not one of my favorite baseball pastimes, the hypothetical move. Yeah, I am a sucker for them. I can't know, not one of my favorite baseball pastimes, the hypothetical move. Yeah, I am a sucker for them. I can't help but make them, even though I know they're the worst. And I also, I mean, when you look at various writers or GMs even, predict where players are going to go as free agents,

you're talking about an extremely small range of possibilities in that case. Each player can only go to 30 different teams and realistically can only go to maybe at most 9, 10, and yet they never get any of them right. It's just they never get any right. It's every time worse than, you know, it's random chance, right? And so then when you start thinking about a trade proposal and what the math actually is, I mean, you're talking about thousands to the power of thousands. And the idea that there's anything remotely tied to reality sort of makes it clear. I mean, it is one of those things that we talk about that is least tied to reality. There is nothing remotely real about it there has never been a suggested trade that any one of us has ever written that

came true uh there have been you know sometimes at some point nope never never never it's never happened somebody at some point said uh oh you know reed johnson would be great for this guy and you know maybe they could get this for him. And Reed Johnson was traded, but not for that guy. I mean, you know, it's never for that guy. How would you, what, I mean, come on. Like, what are the odds that you actually would get all the parts right? I think, though, that there is a, they do have value because they're essentially a way of ranking players,

but without the abstractness of a numbered list. You're ranking players in a sort of meaningful way where you're looking at their value to different situations. You're looking at their contract status. You're looking at their growth. You're looking at all the things that would be attractive about them. And so it's a way of, I would say, getting deep into a player's kind of profile. And so for that reason, I do think that there's some value to them, just not in any predictive way.

As for the Tavares profile idea specifically, I also wondered a year ago why these trades of mega prospects for mega prospects don't ever happen, especially because as we've talked about on this show, it's easier than ever to kind of evaluate what each prospect's value really is now that people have kind of looked at historically what prospects do in aggregate. And the problem with them is that even though we kind of know the median performance level for prospects at each tier, the range of performances is absolutely insane. And not in the same way that all baseball players' range of possibilities are insane. And not in the same way that all baseball players range of possibilities are insane. You don't know what Mike Napoli is going to do this year, or you didn't know in 2011, but you knew that he was basically either going to be replacement level or worth five wins or something more likely around the middle. With top prospects. You literally can't really zero in any better than somewhere between Mickey mantle and, uh,

whatever Rick and keel turned into where he had to like actually stop pitching. He was so bad, uh, and go away for four years and then come back as like a pinch hitter. Uh, like that's the actual range of a number one or a number two prospect. And so I looked at every number one and number two prospect from 95 to 2005 and imagined if those trades had all happened and looked at the,

how much, how many wins each player would produce in the six years they were under team control. And there are no, well, there's basically one or two close trades in the bunch prior for beckett would have been a close trade for six years and actually ben grie for paul canerco even though it doesn't sound like a close trade would have been a very close trade the rest would have essentially all been landslides and you're talking about A-Rod for Ruben Rivera and J.D. Drew for Rick Ankeel. And I guess not all of them are landslides.

Andrew Jones for Paul Wilson. There's a couple that are actually close. Joe Maurer for Felix Hernandez would have been close. Rocco Baldelli for Mark Kishara. You're talking about trades that would get a GM fired. And you could look at that and say, well, the other guy though would get, you know, just as much gain. I mean, in the aggregate, they all work out to a push, but nobody there's, you know, you're not going to get nearly the benefit from pulling off one

of those trades as you successfully, as you will from losing one of those trades by 30 wins. It's just one of those sort of situations where coasting downhill is never as relaxing as riding uphill is the opposite, if that analogy makes sense. Right. Because if you make that trade and it backfires and there's a significant chance that it will, then that's the sort of thing that gets held over your head forever. Yes. And maybe you get fired because of that or in part because of that.

Whereas if you hold on to the guy and he is the consensus best or second best prospect in baseball and he doesn't pan out, probably no one will blame you for expecting that he would pan out. Exactly. And one of the examples I gave is that everybody remembers that John Daniels traded Adrian Gonzalez away for nothing, but very few people remember that he traded nothing for Adrian Gonzalez in the first place. I mean, one of those trades is hung over him a lot more than the other one is hung over him. I think that one other thing is when

we talked about the Blue Jays trade for Reyes, Burley, and Johnson, and we talked about the Blue Jays trade for Reyes, Burley, and Johnson. And we talked about the TikTok story that the Toronto Star had written about it. I think it was the Toronto Star. They talked a lot about how difficult it is to give up prospects because there are actually a lot of people in the organization who are personally attached to them, who have a lot invested in them. And there is probably a little bit of a reluctance to trade prospects, I think, because you do kind of piss off the scout a little bit when you trade his guy. I mean, not piss him off like he's going to quit in a huff or anything, but that guy put a lot of work into getting that prospect, and he's got a lot emotionally invested into it, and it's not a lot emotionally invested into it and

it's not easy to to to trade those guys so it's it's probably even if profar and taveras produce exactly the same amount from this point forward for each of their teams there is probably um a case that can be made that each one is worth a little bit more to his own team because uh you know the guy you love the guy. You love the guy. Yeah, it makes sense to me. All right, that's the end of the show. We'll be back on Monday with Episode 176. Send in questions to podcasts at baseballperspectives.com.

Our brief but impassioned plea for iTunes ratings yesterday netted us three ratings. So thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we will be back on Monday.