Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 280: Is Billy Hamilton Worth a Roster Spot?/Five Free Agents Finishing Make-or-Break Years

Episode Date: September 5, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss the debatable value of Billy Hamilton, then forecast the free agencies of Jacoby Ellsbury, Brian McCann, Phil Hughes and others....

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Good morning and welcome to episode 280 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus. I am Ben Lindberg, joined by Sam Miller. Hello, Sam. Howdy. How are you? Good. Would you like to discuss anything before we discuss things? 280 was always the line where a hitter became a good hitter when I was a kid. Not a great hitter.
Starting point is 00:00:49 A great hitter hit 300. But 280 was a good hitter. Does that mean we have become a good podcast? It's a counting stat, not a rate stat, Ben, what we're doing here. That's true. Okay. Well, I don't have much to say. I was thinking earlier that it's strange how impossible to find minor league postseason stats it is. Has that ever occurred to you?
Starting point is 00:01:13 When you look up a player's stats on Baseball Reference, his postseason stats are not included in the minors. There's no section for postseason stats like there is for major league guys. There's pretty much no source. There's like a private portal where you can look up MILB stats and even there it's kind of hard to find. It's like it never happens. So they don't get wrapped into their regular
Starting point is 00:01:38 stats? No, they don't. Yeah, it occurred to me earlier to wonder whether that was the case and no, they don't. It's like they just disappear. We have no way to know who's clutch in the minor leagues would you rather if you were i mean if you were for instance the editor of a site that kept track of stats for instance if that were a thing that happened would you rather see the stats be their own separate line or would you rather see them just wrapped in unmentioned as as you know part of the overall line i think i don't know i think for a minor leaguer i might be okay with it
Starting point is 00:02:12 just being in the in the regular season line i don't know maybe yeah maybe i definitely would be that might be well i don't know maybe it's deceptive when you look and see that a guy played more games than someone else and more games than were scheduled for his team i guess it could be confusing um really i don't know i don't know i can't i don't see any downside to that i'm not totally against the idea of having that be the case in the majors i'm not necessarily i don't think i'm for it but i'm not necessarily, I don't think I'm for it, but I'm not totally against it. Okay, what's your topic? Billy Hamilton. All right, and I wanted to talk about some guys that I wrote about
Starting point is 00:02:52 who were in make-or-break contract years that are now almost over. Cool, why don't I start? Okay. So Billy Hamilton is up in the majors. It seems like it's very exciting in the most literal way possible. It is excitement more than it's meaningful, if that makes sense. It's like, oh, this guy might run fast. That's very exciting.
Starting point is 00:03:14 It used to be more than that. I mean, last year at this time, the excitement about whether he would be called up was greater because I guess he had fewer question marks as a prospect at that point. All right. Jumping ahead a little bit. Okay. Let the man talk.
Starting point is 00:03:32 All right. No, I think even last year that I was – I felt like we were talking about him mainly in September mainly as just a pinch runner. But because the Reds did have a pretty... No, they didn't. They had Drew Stubbs. That's right.
Starting point is 00:03:47 It would have made sense to replace Stubbs and or Heisey with Hamilton. But anyway, yeah. So this year, Hamilton is up to be a runner, to run fast. And as you noted, he had a very down season. And there's no question about what sort of player he is. There's no question about his speed,
Starting point is 00:04:04 which is elite, the elitist speed probably in the game. And so I just wanted to know whether Billy Hamilton is a guy that you would want on your team, if you would be happy to have him on your team or whether we're just talking about a little bit of a temporary freak show who we'll all get fairly bored of in not too long and who might actually end up being a punchline after a few years, the way that these sorts of speed guys sometimes become, like Scott Pudzenik and Juan Pierre and Willie Tavares. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:40 Well, I guess you're kind of asking me to project what he'll be, in a sense, right? Well, yeah, I guess, but let's just assume that... If this is what he is? Yeah, yeah. So assume that he doesn't get better. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean he's as bad as his minor league stats this year, which, if anybody's unaware, he hit.256,.308,.343 in AAA. I mean, he might be better than that because he had demonstrated some better ability than that before.
Starting point is 00:05:09 But, I mean, yeah, assuming that he doesn't get much better. In that case, I think I would have a place for him. You know, he played like 120 games in center in AAA. I don't know exactly how good he looks there. Do you have any sense of – because this was his first full season or first any season at the position. Yeah, in the call-up, Jason Park said that his defensive play, he makes mistakes, but he has the speed to outrun them.
Starting point is 00:05:43 It doesn't seem like it's elite or anything, but he can handle the position. So, yeah, I mean, he'd be a pretty valuable guy if he were like a plus center fielder. Then I feel like I'd be pretty happy to have him as a fourth outfielder type who was just almost an automatic steal. I guess we'll see how automatic he is. He was, what, he was 15? He was 75 for 90 this year. And, of course, everyone always knows that he's going,
Starting point is 00:06:15 which is why it's so fun. Like, the first steal that he had was Molina behind the plate, and I forget who was pitching, but, um, you know, kind of an adverse matchup for him battery wise. And he, uh, I guess it wasn't the greatest, wasn't the greatest throw. It was kind of offline, but it's fun to watch when everyone knows that he's going and he still goes.
Starting point is 00:06:39 But I think he did. I don't know if you saw this, but he's, he got another one. Yeah. Yeah. another one yeah in the 15th today he stole again off of Molina and again scored I believe the go ahead run I might be getting my sequence messed up here but yes he again stole and he again scored so yeah I think there's a there's a place
Starting point is 00:07:00 for that guy right I'd rather have that guy than a I don't know a second loogie or whatever I'd rather have that guy than a, I don't know, a second loogie or whatever. I'd rather have a guy who can play center or play all outfield positions in a pinch. Presumably he could do that. He didn't play a corner at all this year down there. But if you can play center, presumably you can come in as a defensive replacement pretty much anywhere in the outfield, plus the speed. I mean, that's something that I think when teams had bigger benches, anyone would have made some space for that guy.
Starting point is 00:07:35 I don't think he's really an impact player if he doesn't hit any better than he did this year. 14th. It was the 14th and he scored the tying run. 14th it was the 14th and he scored the tying run it is it is interesting how okay so in dollar sign on the muscle um they talk about how one of branch rich ricky's uh sort of founding ideas of scouting is that um the basically the two most important tools you look at for an amateur are speed and arm and that's for good reason it's because because if he's got speed, he's a good athlete, he's going to be able to play a lot of positions. He's got a sort of a broad, it's kind of like a skill that plays in a lot of different ways. And if he's got a good arm, then you know he's not going to be stuck playing second base or first base or left field.
Starting point is 00:08:22 And yet those two tools in the majors are kind of like the least important. You'd much rather have a guy who could hit than a guy with an elite hit tool than an elite run tool. And it's this weird moment where a player as a prospect kind of hits this point where the speed becomes less and less important and the other things become more and more important. And it's never quite clear when that moment is but like hamilton is a single a player um you know i don't know i always kind of like i think there were a lot of people who were suspicious because he's got this incredible this incredible skill that we tend to i think maybe associate to some degree with guys who are really one-dimensional
Starting point is 00:09:05 and can't do a whole lot, and that kind of frustrate you when they get up to the majors. I mean, even Vince Coleman, who is probably the closest thing to a predecessor of Billy Hamilton. I mean, Ricky Anderson was obviously a great bass dealer, but did so, so much more and probably wasn't as fast uh as Coleman and Hamilton are but you know Vince Coleman you know I don't know I'm looking right now and his career was basically like a 12 win player over 13 seasons um despite being able to steal basically at will you know he had 300 and sub 300 on base percentages at the top of the order for his whole you know most of his most of his career.
Starting point is 00:09:48 I always get the feeling that Hamilton's always been controversial as a prospect maybe. MLB.com had him I think 11th in their top 100 this year. I get the feeling that there are a lot of people who just looked at him and thought oh well you know he's he's never going to be an impact player he's just going to have one impact tool and it's hard to get that impact tool in the game a lot of times you know i i wrote that piece last year about um trying to figure out how much hamilton could actually be worth if he were used every single day as a pinch runner and stole every single time, which we've seen.
Starting point is 00:10:29 Yeah, that's what's happened. Yeah, and in those two cases, you really see the extreme value of it. In the seventh inning of a game yesterday, he scores the go-ahead run in a 1-0 victory after stealing a base. And today, down by one in the 14th, he steals and then scores the tying run and pushes the game forward and so you look at that and you get really excited and you think especially in september or october you feel like that's going to be hugely valuable but then
Starting point is 00:10:54 you also look at it from the other side which is that like it took till the 14th inning for them to get him in a game um it's not that easy to get a pinch runner in a lot of times they were in a tie game for uh let's see it looks like they were in a tie game for well at least from the seventh inning on and they couldn't find a place to get him in you have to get a guy on base in the right situation and it has to be the right guy that you don't want that you don't mind pulling out of the game and with hamilton you immediately have to replace him um So it's a strange skill that has a kind of, in a way, really limited utility, much less than you might think, given how fundamental it is to the sport. I mean, you would much rather have a guy who can run a little bit, who's good at everything else, than a guy who can run a little bit who's good at everything else than a guy who can run a ton and is only a little bit good at everything else, right?
Starting point is 00:11:48 And yet, I mean, he's different from your typical speed pinch runner guy in that he's like almost automatic, it seems like. If you do put him in, if you do find that opportunity, there's a really, really good chance that he's going to go and he's going to be successful when he goes um so it's not a great chance that he's going to be successful though i mean he's he's got a good success rate it's definitely better than breaking even but those i mean if he'd been caught stealing tonight which happens every six times or so uh even at lower levels, probably happens
Starting point is 00:12:27 more frequently in the majors when he's going up against Molina, if he gets thrown out tonight, that costs them huge. I mean, the problem is that the value of a stolen base is significantly less than the negative value of a caught stealing. And so, I mean. He's not automatic. He got caught 15 times this year by AAA catchers and he got caught 37 times last year. It's a good rate, particularly given how obvious he is. The question is whether that player, whether a player who, as some people have noted, is basically being used like Herb Washington was in the 70s,
Starting point is 00:13:05 whether that player can be particularly valuable. And I'm not sure if it can. I mean, Herb Washington wasn't nearly the base runner, so he's not a great hypothetical, but it's interesting, or not hypothetical, comparison, analogy. But it's interesting how, I don't know, in a weird way, there's just not that much you can do with speed in baseball. You can steal, but you can't steal that much better than a lot of other guys can. We've never seen the guy who goes 70 for 70, is what I'm saying. You'd think that there'd be a guy who's so fast that he could go 70 for 70 and we just have never seen
Starting point is 00:13:45 that you you don't really see anyone even approaching it you see some guys in the in the 80s who are able to steal reliably um but we haven't seen a guy who just it it who turns a 90 the 90 foot distance into basically the equivalent of 80 it hasn't happened yeah Yeah, of course, I mean, Herb Washington literally didn't hit or play the field. So if Hamilton, I don't know, I guess it all kind of comes down to his defense. If he could become an above-average center fielder coupled with the speed, I feel like that would keep him on a roster at least. I feel like that would keep him on a roster at least. He was 14th on our top 101 list this year, which kind of surprises me.
Starting point is 00:14:40 Especially because I think Parks, even Parks, I get the feeling to some degree it's like an acknowledgment of the tools without necessarily buying it. Because Parks kind of downplays it a little bit he yeah uh he says hamilton's bad and approach never won me over and i was hesitant to go too big on his future as a result yeah it's like you can't ignore the speed but on the other hand it just doesn't feel the same yeah i remember jason was always very down on d gordon uh who was getting ranked pretty highly on most prospect lists because he just looked at him and he was really skinny and had no power and he just thought that he would be overwhelmed and dominated
Starting point is 00:15:16 once he got to the majors, and that's kind of what has happened. And maybe that's kind of the case with Hamilton, who's not quite as, as scrawny as Gordon, but sort of the, the same sort of build, same sort of skillset. So Gordon was a top 30 prospect too. Yeah. So, well, I'm, I'm glad he exists at least. Cause I am looking forward to, I hope he's good enough at at least, just to give us those moments over the next few years
Starting point is 00:15:47 where he comes in at a pivotal time and everyone knows he's going and we know and the catcher knows and the pitcher knows. And I guess that could lead to a lot of pitcher holding the ball and throwing over to first and maybe that would actually make things a little more boring. But I feel like if the situation were, were high leverage enough, it would be pretty exciting to, to see him come in.
Starting point is 00:16:12 Yeah. It'd kind of be nice to see him succeed. It'd be, it kind of would be nice to see, uh, that type of player replaced the second or third lefty in the bullpen. Yeah. I'm not,
Starting point is 00:16:22 I'm not sure that's what I would choose to replace the second or third lefty in the bullpen with, but I would rather have that guy. Yes. And the second or third lefty in the bullpen. Yeah. I'm not sure that's what I would choose to replace the second or third lefty in the bullpen with, but I would rather have that guy. Yes. Than the second or third lefty in the bullpen. Right. Yes. I agree. All right. Okay.
Starting point is 00:16:33 So I wrote an article back in March about players who I thought were entering make or break contract years. If they had a good successful season, they could really cash in as free agents and get some enormous long-term deal. And if they had an unsuccessful year or got hurt or whatever, they could, I don't know, maybe just be in for a one-year kind of pillow contract thing or miss their window maybe for a big long-term deal. So I wanted to kind of briefly go over these guys and see whether they made or were broken, I guess. The first one is Tim Lincecum, whom we've talked about a few times. We still have literally no idea whether it is. Yeah, it's hard to say.
Starting point is 00:17:24 It's going to come down to his last three starts yeah i don't know whether he's these other guys that i'm going to bring up it's pretty clear whether they had the the make year or the break year lincecum i'm not really i'm not really sure kind of kind of in the middle like he didn't he didn't suffer a serious injury or anything, and he was better than last season, and he had the no-hitter, but overall— And he has like the same ex-fip as he had when he was actually good. Yeah. So, yeah. So maybe we'll talk about him again, yet again, at the end of the season. He was throwing 88 today, according to the radio broadcast. we'll talk about him again, yet again, at the end of the season. He was throwing 88 today, according to the radio broadcast.
Starting point is 00:18:10 Yeah. So I don't know. I guess he's kind of the one who's in the middle. Didn't really improve his stock a whole lot. Didn't really decline. The other guys, it's more clear. So the four others in the top five were Jacoby Ellsbury, Josh Johnson, Brian McCann, and Phil Hughes. So I'd say clearly the best of those players is McCann, right?
Starting point is 00:18:49 He missed some time at the beginning of the season, but came back and since coming back has basically been prime Brian McCann for the most part. He's hitting about as well as he has really since his first full season, which I guess on a rate basis is still his best. Because it looks to me like he's not hitting as well as his third full season. I think it's close when you adjust for the offensive context. I think it's pretty close. Let me see. Let's see. So his third full season, he had a.305 true average, and this year it's.297.
Starting point is 00:19:28 So pretty close. and still seems to be a good defensive catcher um hasn't had those vision problems that he had uh he is he is 29 years and six months old so so by opening day next year he will be 30. So that's always kind of a red flag for a catcher, maybe especially for a guy who's been playing for quite a while and has a lot of games on his knees and various other body parts, but has done just about as much as he possibly could do this season to answer any questions to come back from a down year last year and restore his stock. I don't know if we want to talk about what kind of deal we could see these guys getting. I mean, he seems like a guy who's been tied to the yankees throughout the season just because he seems like he'd be a pretty good fit for them um and that
Starting point is 00:20:32 always that always helps a little bit but as a as a will be 30 year old catcher what's what's kind of the the ceiling on how long a deal he could get, do you think? Is it like four years probably? Well, as you know, the only thing that I'm worse at predicting than baseball events is baseball contracts. Yes. I guess I would be surprised if he got four years. Yeah. And I would – I don't know. I'll say – I don't know.
Starting point is 00:21:04 I'll say $3,039. And it will be I don't know, I'll say, I don't know, I'll say 3-39. And it will be seen as a good deal and a disappointment for him. Yeah, I would definitely see that as a good deal for any team that signed him to that. I could see him getting to 4. I think if he got a three-year deal, the annual value would be higher than that. He's just, I mean, he's a really valuable player. He's just a great hitter at catcher who also is a good receiver
Starting point is 00:21:36 and does all those things well defensively. I would pay a lot of money for that player. The other player who I guess has had the good year, although maybe not an unqualified good year, is Ellsbury. And the most important thing for Ellsbury going into the season was probably just that he stay healthy. And he has. He has some sort of nagging injury right now, but has not been on the DL, has not suffered any serious injury. And that was really kind of the question for him, because in the last three years entering this season, he'd had one season in which he was one of the best players in baseball,
Starting point is 00:22:18 sandwiched between two where he'd been hurt and not all that productive when he was playing. where he'd been hurt and not all that productive when he was playing. So now he is almost 30. He'll turn 30, I guess it looks like, in a matter of days. Yeah, September 11th is his 30th birthday. You know what? Do you want me to just take over this part? This particular Pagan, this particular Ellsbury thing?
Starting point is 00:22:48 You can keep going. It's just I interrupted you, and so now that I've broken your flow, do you want me to finish? Sounds like you're going to make a Pagan comp? I am. Okay, you tipped your head there. Yeah, go ahead. All right, I'll talk for a little bit, and then you can come back and save me when I lose my way. So Pagan last year, 778 OPS, 5.2 warp, 11 runs above average on defense. Ellsbury this year is 3.9 warp, so he'll get pretty much right there. Eight runs above average defensively, so he'll get pretty much right there eight runs above average defensively so he'll basically
Starting point is 00:23:26 get right there and a 773 or something ops so basically the same raw ops though pagan of course in a tougher ballpark but an easier league so essentially same season and uh ellsbury is a year younger in baseball terms, but actually not a full year. Let's see, July 2nd, 1981. So yeah, like 10 months younger. So that's significant. But basically, they're coming off the exact same year. They had kind of similarly bad years the year before, although for slightly different reasons. bad years the year before, although for slightly different reasons.
Starting point is 00:24:11 And yet I would imagine that Pagan or that Ellsbury is going to get significantly more than Pagan because Ellsbury had that huge year two years ago. And it's kind of an interesting thing. This will be an interesting sort of case study in how much a season from three years ago is actually worth because that's what Ellsbury is going to get paid for to some degree, right? He's going to get, he'll get paid for having a good year and then he'll get paid even more because he once had a really great year. Yeah. And I guess we'll get to see how much teams weight the past to some degree.
Starting point is 00:24:40 Yeah, it's, yeah, it's a really interesting free agency case i mean that looks like such such an anomaly now the 32 home run year he's he's never made it to 10 in any other season he probably won't this year either so it's it's so strange because he's he's like a a speed contact guy who had he has 31 yeah he has 31 career home runs otherwise yeah so it's he's it's like he he has this one skill set that's very distinctive and yet he has this one season a couple years ago where he was just a completely different player he did did the things that he does now but also was just a huge power guy and i i don't know i don't i don't know whether teams will pay him based on that at all it's it's been two full seasons since we've seen that and it
Starting point is 00:25:33 seems like just such a such a deviation from who he is that i don't know i feel like teams would just kind of write him write that off almost but he also hit 46 doubles that year which is also crazy yeah yeah i mean he was he was incredibly valuable that's houston and i kind of wonder whether he falls into the the michael bourne bucket also um thought about yeah i thought about going that route instead right it seems like a decent comp also. I think he'll be two months older than Michael Bourne was last year. So he kind of has that same thing where he'll be a qualifying offer guy, so he's going to cost a pick. And he has that skill set of the speedy contact guy who you don't really want after he's 30. And maybe that was partially responsible for why Bourne didn't sign until spring training basically last year and didn't get the kind of deal that people thought he would get based on just looking up his war or whatever.
Starting point is 00:26:43 Because he seemed like maybe not the safest bet to age well. And so Ellsbury kind of has that same thing where he's a speed and contact guy who will be 30, and maybe that's not the guy that you want to commit to. If he were a 30 home run guy in addition to that, then that kind of alleviates that concern that he's sort of a player who's entirely dependent on his speed and once that goes all of his value will go so i don't know i guess that's it's kind of my favorite free agent case of the winter to to see
Starting point is 00:27:18 what he gets yeah so i think i'm gonna have to insist on a bet of the day in a second. So you don't think that his, and I'm not challenging you on this, I'm asking, you don't think that his power, his demonstrated power from the past is a relevant feature of his profile as a free agent? It should be, I guess. Yeah, I wouldn't toss it out entirely it's just is he gonna be that guy again i mean we've seen him a full healthy season now where he hasn't done that it's kind of hard to imagine him going back to that and yet it's it's in his skill set theoretically uh he i don't know maybe maybe when the speed goes he somehow brings back the power and and offers that dimension i don't know
Starting point is 00:28:13 i i guess it's relevant and and he will get more than he would would get otherwise if he hadn't had that sort of season but i don't i can't really can't really imagine many teams being big believers that he's going to repeat that season either it doesn't feel to me unlikely that he'll have uh considerably more power in his 30s than he has otherwise shown i mean i'm not saying he's going to have 80 extra base hits uh but um you know you look at well i don't know maybe johnny damon's not the best example, but Johnny Damon basically turned into a bit of a power hitter in his mid-30s. He's demonstrated the ability to pull a ball.
Starting point is 00:28:55 He's demonstrated that he has the strength to do it. I don't know. I haven't watched him enough or read about him enough to know how much of this one might attribute to approach. But it wouldn't surprise me that he's demonstrated the ability that if as he gets older, as power becomes sort of more important to his production, that he turns into a decent power hitter. Certainly a different hitter than we've seen from him most of his career.
Starting point is 00:29:23 So here's the bet of the day. you know it's certainly a different hitter than we've seen from him most of his career so here's the bet of the day um how many home runs over the next over the next uh five years all right uh okay so the thing with him is that i don't really trust him to stay healthy either um so i'm i'm assuming that in the next five years he'll miss at least one if you if you add up his injury time at least one of those he'll be on the deal so so i'll say it's really it's really like four four full seasons in the next five um and maybe that might even be optimistic based on his history but okay i'll go i'll go with that premise and i will also my guess will be along the same lines okay so all right i guess
Starting point is 00:30:14 i will say uh i guess i'll i'll say 50 see that's pretty high. It is higher than he would have hit it. Yeah, he's only done that once. He's only had double digits once. Yeah, and yet it's not at all forecasting a return to 2011. So it's somewhere in the middle there, closer to what he's been so far. I mean, it's 12 homers per year if I'm saying he's a full-season guy. So I can see that. He's in his 30s, and he adds, I don't know, a handful of homers per year. And, of course, we don't know what ballpark he's going to be in,
Starting point is 00:31:00 so that affects things also. But, yeah, I'll say 50, sure. All right, I'll say 66. All right. So that would make it just a little more than 13 over five years. But if you look at it on a four-year scale, it's like 16 and a half. Should we do stolen bases also? No.
Starting point is 00:31:26 Okay. All right. Well, we'll meet back in five years to see how this bet came out. I hope someone's keeping track of all of the things that we've... Well, someone is. Yeah. Okay. So the internet.
Starting point is 00:31:40 The internet. It's all saved on the internet, if nothing else. So we can just go back and listen to all 280 episodes and find the necessary bets. Yeah, that seems like something we would do. Okay, and then the next two guys, one, there's Josh Johnson, who really couldn't have gone much worse, I guess. Yeah, may not even merit a pillow contract. Yeah, that's the question.
Starting point is 00:32:09 It might be a minor league invite at this point. Yeah, so clearly not a qualifying offer guy, right? Right? Yeah, right. Clearly not a qualifying offer. And I'm exaggerating a little bit, but I'd guess one year and five million with with some innings incentives yeah yeah i guess i mean yeah it depends how his elbow is feeling over the winter but even so no one's no one's gonna trust him uh diminished stuff and injuries and it will have been a couple years since he was the josh johnson that people
Starting point is 00:32:46 would have wanted to sign to a big deal so yeah hard hard to imagine the the make or break year being much more broken than josh johnson's although the the last guy xvip xvip the last guy is Phil Hughes. Also could not have gone much worse, could have suffered a catastrophic injury, but short of that, could not have done much more to dissuade teams from signing him. And yet I feel like the argument in favor of signing Phil Hughes before this season is still sort of the same argument now, right? The idea that he is just a guy who is in the worst possible ballpark or one of the worst possible ballparks for a pitcher with his profile. and that if you got him out of Yankee Stadium, he could— I mean, if you put Phil Hughes in Petco Park, I feel like he could be a guy who maybe would be a smart signing because his peripherals look okay.
Starting point is 00:33:59 He doesn't walk a ton of guys. He has, you know, an average-ish strikeout rate, maybe a little better for a starter. He just gives up a ton of guys he has you know an average ish strikeout rate maybe a little better for a starter he just gives up a ton of home runs and he's i mean those are legitimate home run rates not not the kind of fluky home run per fly ball rate season that you would regress like his his x-fips are not significantly different from his eras he is just that guy when he's pitching in Yankee Stadium because he's one of the most extreme fly ball pitchers out there. But if you took him out of that context and put him in a good fly ball park and he's still 27 years old,
Starting point is 00:34:43 I could see him maybe being attractive to certain teams. I mean, his value is certainly depressed by the last couple seasons he's had. And then there's also the fact that he had that one dominant bullpen year, which I feel like maybe makes him more attractive to a team because, I don't know, he's demonstrated that ability and maybe, maybe every starter can, can do that, but he's had that year where he was pretty much unhittable in the bullpen.
Starting point is 00:35:13 It was 2009, uh, total late inning reliever quality pitcher. Maybe if, if he doesn't, if he does start and still gives up a ton of home runs, you put him back in the bullpen and he can be that as a fallback. You still salvage some value out of the deal. So I feel like there will still be suitors, even though at the trade deadline, reportedly, the Yankees just couldn't sniff an offer for him.
Starting point is 00:35:41 They were dangling him, as they say, and no one was really interested, according to all the rumors out there. But it still seems to me like maybe he's... I mean, on the road this year, he has a sub-4 ERA. Seems like maybe a decent buy-low option for the right team. Obviously, after these two seasons, he's not going to get any kind of big deal but seems like it does seem like someone will see that as a bargain and probably multiple
Starting point is 00:36:11 teams will see it as a bargain yeah and you know he'll get a job he's he's the same age as wade davis yeah he is he's young so so still sort of attractive and and And not really a serious injury history lately And just kind of a guy who's been in the wrong place for him Bad fit for him Change of scenery guy Alright Alright Okay
Starting point is 00:36:39 So we have one more show for tomorrow We have a guest lined up Should be fun Come back and listen to us then

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.