Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 571: Thoughts on a Thin Free-Agent Market

Episode Date: November 7, 2014

Ben and Sam banter about Fat Kershaw and GMs without playing experience, then talk about free agents who aren’t getting their due.

I'm too high, I'm too high, I'm falling left to ground. I'm too high, I'm too high, I hope I never ever come down. Good morning and welcome to episode 571 of Effectively Vile, a daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives, presented by The Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I'm Ben Lindberg of Grantland, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Perspectives. Yo. Do you feel like a fraud in practice,

continuing to claim that we are a daily podcast? Nope. Okay. Nope. Me neither. I'm all right with it. I keep saying Nope. Okay. Nope. Me neither. I'm alright with it. I keep saying it. Yep. Anything you'd like to talk

about? Yeah, just real real real real quick. I didn't think about this while I was watching it, but I thought about it while I was saying it. The scene that we talked about. Snowpiercer? Violin is playing just before violence happens. I think it was.

Huh. Okay. Particularly because the violin string snapping is what triggers the actual violence in the filmmaking. Hmm. What song was she playing? He. It's the guy, the old man. Oh, right. I don't know that maybe that would answer it yeah that might be oh by the way uh carmen c uh had uh confirmed that the shot the

clarifying shot that we talked about was in the theatrical release uh-huh okay just to be clear figured it was but we weren't totally conclusive on it Now we are Good to know Alright that's it So it's the off season Which means that We're going to periodically get a

Fat player photo Submission Listeners from last off season Will recall Actually I don't really recall Who the potential fat players were listeners from last offseason will recall. Actually, I don't really recall who the potential fat players were last offseason. Right, right, right. When Cano took his first picture as a mariner,

he was wearing lots of bulky clothes, possibly because he was outside when it was taken and it was cold out. And he looked larger than we were accustomed to seeing him. So there was rampant speculation on this podcast about whether he had gained weight or whether he was just wearing more layers. This is a silly discussion, but it's kind of amusing when you see players who keep themselves in tip-top physical shape for the most part during the season, let themselves go a little bit in the offseason, occasionally, maybe. And we've seen this with Jeter in the past.

Jeter was a famous one. Anyway, A-Rod, yes, of course. Mariachi A-Rod. Mariachi A-Rod. So I received a submission via Twitter today from at Charlie Widows, who sent me a picture that Clayton Kershaw's wife had tweeted of Clayton Kershaw and asked me fat Kershaw with three three question marks. And I sent this to you and you looked at it and you reserved comment in case we wanted to banter about it so i'm bringing it up now to ask what you think i i don't think that it's fat kershaw i think that it partly the fact that he is surrounded by pastry yes it is it's a pic it's

a picture of him serving the community first of all so we're with a big grin he's in front of a full pie and about eight pastries and pastry bags as well as about eight takeout bags that are presumably full of pies right and and he's looking at the camera with a huge smile and rubbing his hands together yes so as though this is exactly the photo that you would see if it were now I'm going to eat it. Right. Right. So I don't think he is going to eat it. But I think that helps with the mise en scene.

I think that the shirt doesn't fit him very well. And so to me, the big question on this picture picture is why does Clayton Kershaw's mom still buy his clothes? This shirt is ill-fitting in the exact proportion that mom's mom-bought clothes are ill-fitting. This is not wife-bought clothes. This is mom-bought clothes. It's not grandma. It's certainly not grandma-bought clothes. It's not super, and it's not grandma. It's certainly not grandma-bot clothes. It's not badly, badly misfitting. What's the difference between mom-bot and wife-bot? Proportion.

It's just the degree of ill-fit. Yeah, wives get it exactly right. I see. But moms are always expecting you to grow into it. So it's like just about two months to uh it's about two months off uh so i think that uh i think that there's there's a little bit of there's a little bit of extra in the chest there but i think that the shirt is just slightly uh missized and yeah you don't you don't you don't see it in the face no There's a bit of billow in the stomach area, but it seems like it's probably just some empty air

between him and the shirt more so than stomach. But I will post the picture on the Facebook group so that you can all decide for yourselves. It's a question of Kershaw. It's a photo of Kershaw preparing food for his charity, Kershaw's Challenge. And yes, I agree that in this case, it is mostly context. It's the table full of cookies and pies in front of him. So thanks for the submission. Keep your eyes out. Let us know if anyone comes across better ones. And the difference in this case is also that, well, in some of the cases, like with Jeter and Mariachi A-Rod, it's almost the fact that they didn't put the picture out themselves helps a bit.

It's like a found photo. themselves helps a bit it's like they it's like a found photo it's like someone took a picture of them unbeknownst to the player and maybe the player wasn't looking good didn't know he was being photographed in this case it's kershaw's wife taking the photo and putting it online so you figure it's probably going to be fairly flattering or at least they're not knowingly going to put up a fat Kershaw photo. There were some comments that are probably not really worth discussing at length, but the comments that Ryan Terrio made on Twitter yesterday about how he was responding to Farhan Zaidi's hiring in LA and said something about how players or GMs who haven't played aren't, you don't want to trust your team to a GM who hasn't played.

And of course, Brandon McCarthy responded quickly to point out that Terrio's two World Series rings came courtesy of GMs who hadn't played, or at least who hadn't played professionally. Terrio may have been referring to not playing at all. Hey, Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben. Breaking news, breaking news. Okay. Big, big breaking news.

Mark Saxon of ESPN LA is reporting that the Dodgers will name Gabe Kapler the farm director. Cool. Friend of the podcast. Yes. Congratulations to him. That's big news. To the Dodgers. That's really's big news that's exciting that's really super exciting yeah that's an interesting position for him that's i think that he will be good at any position that they that they find for him there is no position in this world i would not give to

gabe capler over most of the people who are in them uh and yet i did i hadn't even considered that like that's not even something i was thinking of i don't think that's what people were thinking of no he was rumored as a manager in various places and um but but it makes sense yeah he was when he was with the race he was working with young players and he was a minor league manager for the red socks and uh uh yeah i mean you know he's a fitness guy and if the i mean of all the places in the game where fitness should be emphasized more than it is, it would definitely be in the minor leagues where players have neither the oversight nor sometimes the access to good health habits and dietary habits. That's solid. I like that. Yeah, sure.

The problem though, Ben ben here's the problem gabe kapler has a chat scheduled for that's right he's been up there for three months yes there have been rumors floating around about where he might be at that point and i actually wondered whether he would whether he would make that date. Yeah, so we'll have to see. Hopefully he's listening. We'll know how much we want. I wonder whether the LA Times will write an article about this hiring. Is this another geek that they have hired,

or does this not count as another geek? Well, they did. That Dillbeck column that you're referring to did insult Gabe Kapler. Oh, I didn't actually read it. He was actually lumped in with the nerve okay then yeah so that answers that question yeah so back to terrio's comment so the the argument that a gm has to have played is is obviously seems pretty silly i actually tweeted at him to invite him to come on the show and talk about it with us if he wanted to maybe there's ryan terrio yeah is that you tweeted like a mention or yeah because he doesn't call you

wow i did that old i don't know if it was bold he didn't answer i don't think it was that bold but but i would have entertained the possibility that maybe having played gives you some advantage as a GM. But aside from the idea that maybe it would help you scout players or whatever, what percentage of players do you think feel like Ryan Terrio? Do you think it's a high enough percentage that it would actually hamstring a GM who had never played in any way. When he's negotiating with players, for instance, that a player wouldn't want to go to his team or wouldn't be as receptive to his offers because he hadn't played the game. Well, we need to separate what Terrio said from what Terrio meant. What Terrio said is that the gm

needs to have played the game or played pro ball or whatever he said and terry o doesn't believe that terry o played for a bunch of gms who didn't play he won what as it was noted by brandon mccarthy two world series rings playing for gms that didn't play yeah although evidently he counts non-professional playing also because he responded to McCarthy's tweet about that. I say that like Sabian played college ball and Zalek played high school ball at a high level. That's so. Yeah. And of course. Right. And so that's what I was getting at is that Terrio doesn't that is not Terrio's actual position. terrio's actual position uh yeah i think terrio just is drawing a distinction between people who have crossed over into uh who who are who are just not baseball men right who he considers to be

non-baseball men and whose primary in his mind primary skill set or primary qualifications are developed through non-baseball men means and so so, you know, if you, I think if you were, if you stick in the game long enough, you probably get Terrio's respect too, probably, I would guess. So, but anyway, the, is it ever, do I think that any player would not sign with the GM because the GM is too nerdy. Yeah, that it would just make his job or her job harder in any way. I don't think that the player-GM relationship would be affected in any way that matters. I think that conceivably the GM-coach relationship, depending on your manager, the GM-manager

relationship, depending on your scouting director, or depending on anybody, depending on your business director, there are probably people in various levels of responsibility in various franchises, various organizations, that it could be an issue. And those are the people that you're really working with day to day and that you are kind of... Look, Ryan Terrio doesn't think that his GM is his boss. He thinks that his GM is his, in some cases, is his adversary for negotiating, but his boss is his manager. He doesn't care about the GM. I don't think he thinks of his GM as his boss at all. So I don't think it would matter for players.

What percentage of players feel the way Terrio does, I don't really have any idea. I think most of them don't care. I think for the most part... You know, you listened to Hang Up and Listen a couple months ago when they were talking about distractions and whether Michael Sam would be a distraction.

And they were just so – they just hated the idea of having that conversation. And they talked about how – I think it was that episode. It might have been a later episode. But how it's just absurd to think that these guys are distracted at all by these things that are like second-tier news stories. They're just so busy being focused on their game and the stress of playing the game and of staying fit and of thinking about the next matchup and everything like that, that they're just not really distracted by the billion dumb things that we're paying attention to that don't actually matter to them.

And I think that, for the most part, whether the GM wears a team polo shirt or a Brooks Brothers shirt or whatever, it doesn't matter to the players. I wonder if the farm director matters. I guess the Dodgers won't have to worry about that i would think that the farm director does matter for the guys on the farm that those guys do think of the farm director as their boss they're like they know when that guy's in town it sort of scares them he's the first they i mean they meet the farm for one the farm director is the consistent every time they get promoted uh the manager changes the coach changes meet the farm director. For one thing, the farm director is the consistent. Every time they get promoted, the manager changes, the coach changes,

but the farm director stays the same. So it's not like when you're in the majors and you're with the same team for eight years and you're going to have the same manager basically for most of that time. The other thing is that the farm director is the first guy you meet. When you go join the organization, you sit down across the desk from the farm director and some of the coaching staff, and you talk about your family and what you want to get out of the game and all these sorts of personal details. And so that relationship is much, I would say, much stronger than the GM player relationship

at the major league level. I agree. That'd be awesome. Can you imagine how fun it'd be to be drafted by the dodgers and you show up and gabe capler's your boss sweet would that be that'd be pretty good uh okay and then finally an update on a story from the last podcast when i talked about the minor league hockey goalie the the AHL hockey goalie, David Leggio, who knocked the net off its moorings rather than face a 2-0 break because the rules say that that stops play and you get a penalty shot instead, which he saved. So the league acted

quickly to close this loophole. So now if anyone else tries this, the goaltender who does this gets a game misconduct, which I believe means that you suspend the player for the rest of the game. And there will still be a penalty shot, but the team captain gets the power to select any player on the ice to take that penalty shot. you can no longer do that loophole closed we talked long ago in this podcast about the stanky maneuver the eddie stanky maneuver where he he jumped around in the field to distract the batter and how quickly that was outlawed there is now a rule in in the mlb rule book 406, that says that you can't do that. And the AHL acted very quickly to close this Legio loophole also.

Yeah, whenever we get an email about whether you could play in some unconventional way that would give you this unstoppable advantage and be technically within the rules, you with this unstoppable advantage and be technically within the rules uh we usually the the the first question you have to ask is would it be too effective because if it's too effective then they just close the loophole you need to find that sweet spot where it's just effective enough okay so i thought that we could talk about some free agents. So the general background on this free agent class is that it's a thin one. It's a weak one. And I looked at this way back in March, just comparing the projections for top 50 free agents going back to like 2005, 2006, we ran retro Pocota projections for those players. And I added up all the projected wins from the top 50 free agents from each year and compared them to the presumptive top 50 free agents for this year's crop or what at the time figured to be this year's crop. And it was weaker.

It was a lower projected win total, particularly for position players. The pitcher group is not all that thin, but the position player group is the weakest in recent memory, at least. And maybe that's partially because of all the extensions, postponing players' free agencies or eliminating their free agencies. Maybe it's just a one-year blip to some extent.

Whatever the reason, there are not a lot of good free agents available this year on the position player side. And I wonder what your stance is on the debate about whether the scarcity of free agents at a particular position drives up prices because there's the idea that, say, Russell Martin is the only good catcher available, so every team who needs a catcher is going to want Russell Martin or all going to bid on Russell Martin.

But then there is the competing view that it shouldn't matter all that much. The demand and the supply should sort of move in tandem because if there aren't really any good free agents, if there's only one good free agent at a certain position, then that means that not a lot of teams lost good free agents or good players to free agency. So theoretically, there shouldn't be as many teams bidding for that player. So do you think that there's some sort of equilibrium there? I think that there are, I don't know, man, I mean, I don't know how to phrase it. But I think that it's not quite that simple. And it is often that simple, like that,

that we overstate the impact of the guy being the best at his position on the free agent market or the only one at his position. However, there are cases. I mean, there is not exactly 30 of every position available at any given time. And for various reasons like injury or performance or age or rookie crops being particularly rich or not rich in some area uh i think there are times where players are more scarce sure yeah and and there's certainly a market for martin it's not just the pirates the team that lost martin who are bidding on him although

they are interested in keeping him it's also teams like the cubs and the dodgers who didn't have great catchers last year and they're in a position to spend and they're interested in keeping him. It's also teams like the Cubs and the Dodgers who didn't have great catchers last year, and they're in a position to spend, and they're interested in him. Although even when there's a weakness at a certain position on the free agent market, then other teams notice that, and they act like opportunists. And maybe if they had someone that they weren't convinced they wanted to trade, they'll see that everyone is transfixed by russell martin and and then maybe they will offer up their own player or be more

willing to trade some catcher that they have under team control like the diamondbacks being more willing to move miguel montero reportedly or alexei ramirez becoming an item of great interest with the lack of true short stops on the market. So I would imagine that the market just sort of finds its level one way or the other most of the time. But that said, I wanted to look at a few free agents who maybe we think could give teams good value. I did this exercise a couple of years ago at BP, just trying to, you know how when you walk into a drugstore or a pharmacy, you can choose between the name brands that you recognize. Everyone knows those brands.

Or right next to the name brand item, you can buy the store brand item or the generic drugs and they're cheaper and they have almost identical packaging and they have the same active ingredients. And yet lots of people still go for the name brand just because it's the name brand and it has better advertising and it's more recognizable. And chemically, it's the same thing i used to be fascinated by that because i would walk into a cvs and i'd just be amazed that cvs could manufacture every item that every other company produced one product and cvs could produce a hundred different products that's not quite how it works i have since learned they buy wholesale and they slap a label on it, which is not

as interesting as my theory about some magical factory where CVS manufactures everything. But the point is, maybe you get that same sort of effect with free agents sometimes where there is a famous player who established himself. Maybe he won some awards. Maybe he has an agent doing better PR. Maybe he played for a more prominent team. Maybe he's been better more recently and we're putting too much weight on the recent performance. Whatever it is, there are always some cases of guys who go high on the free agent rankings.

Every site does its free agent rankings. And I scan down the list and I'll see a guy who seems to me like he might be just as good as the guy higher on the list, or at least might be a better value than the guy higher on the list. So I wrote something about this for Grantland today. Might be up now if you're listening to this on Friday. today might be up now if you're listening to this on friday and i thought we could discuss a few guys and see if anyone stands out to to you as someone like this who maybe is not getting quite the credit on these various rankings that he deserves does the rule do i have to think that

they're how close to equal do i have to think that they are for this to count? They have to be comparable. I mean, you can't compare the best player at the position and say that you think he's going to be a bad deal, and you'd rather have the guy who is terrible and is going to be making league minimum because you won't be putting as much money at risk. It has to be close enough. So let's say, I'm not trying to set the line anywhere, but just so that I'm sure that this is okay. If I thought that a guy is going to be 90% the value at 60% the cost, that would be the textbook definition

basically? Yeah. I'm probably not going to be thinking that the guy is going to be 105% of the value at 50% of the cost or else I would have just written a column about it already. Right. Yes, right. I would probably have an inflated sense of self. That's right.

Yes. Yeah. I don't think the rankings are so crazy that there's going to be someone at the bottom who is better than someone at the top but there might be some reorderings there that would make some sense

so for instance basically before you say you're for instance let's be honest this entire thing is us waiting to see who you're going to put nori aoki ahead of right he might be involved yes okay i'll start i'll start there sure okay so so yeah so that's a good example so you've got nori aoki who is ranked, I mean, he's 40th on MLB Trade Rumors list. I don't know.

RJ Anderson did a list at BP, and Keith Law did a list, and Fangraphs Readers did a list, and everyone has their list. But consistently, Aoki is in the bottom half of the list, somewhere towards the bottom of the list. So I would compare him, the name brand product that I would compare him to. Wait, should we do it on the count of three? Okay. Three, two. Do you count up or down?

I count down. Okay. Three, two, one. Mark Akis. Oh! All right. So Melky is generally higher than Mark Akis Oh Alright so Melky is generally higher than Mark Akis On these lists so mine is I guess a bit more aggressive

But Melky Yeah yeah Also works I considered Melky Can I tell you why Melky to me was perfect Sure And Melky is obviously better than Aoki So given the choice, I would take

Melky. But by baseball references, war, over the past three years, they are, which is Aoki's career, they are tied with 7.4 war each. 7.5, I should say. And Melky's a top 10 reagent on all these lists, and as you noted, 25th to 40th on the others. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's one where maybe the gap is smaller than people might think. I mean, Marquegas, I might actually argue that Aoki is better or the same. Yeah.

I don't know that there is any difference there really. Or the same. Yeah. I don't know that there is any difference there, really. And Markekis is 26 on the MLB trade rumors list, 14 spots ahead of Aoki. And their value has been essentially the same lately. I mean, neither one really has the power that is typical of a corner outfield spot, but Aoki has very slight edges probably in batting average and on base percentage,

particularly if you count his reach on error ability, which I talked about last offseason at some point when the Royals signed him. But as a refresher, reaching on error is to some extent a repeatable skill. Certain types of players tend to reach on error more so than others, particularly right-handed hitters who hit lots of ground balls and have some speed, which describes Aoki perfectly. And he puts the ball in play a lot. So he has a lot of opportunities to force errors. play a lot so he has a lot of opportunities to force errors and so he has reached base on error 35 times in the last three seasons which is more than anyone but Elvis Andrus who is at 36 times in almost 300 more plate appearances so Markakis in comparison has reached base on error 12 times in the last three years so if you want to give a slight edge to Elke there because of that,

you can do that. Both players are very divisive defensively. But in reverse. In completely different ways, yeah. Markekis just won his second gold glove, and yet in the fielding Bible Awards, which are more statistically inclined, he finished ninth among

right fielders both drs and uzr rate him as 13 runs below average in right over the last three seasons and on the other hand aukey is 13 and 12 runs above average according to those stats over the same span so one of them flunks the eye test kind of. We've seen Aoki in the postseason take his crazy routes, but the stats say that he gets to enough balls to make them worthwhile. And Mark Akis kind of flunks the stats test, although that's sort of a false dichotomy in that the stats are based in part on people watching every single play. So I don't know that there's really a difference between eye test and stats test anymore. But yeah, so how much you think each of them is worth depends on whether you buy into the gold glove more or the stats more.

But I would say that they are quite comparable in value. the stats more but i would say that they are quite comparable in value uh marquekis is two years younger which is good but that also means he'll probably be looking for a longer contract and he might just go back to the orioles anyway so maybe it doesn't matter but but that was one example um i have another do you have do you want to go i have one. I just wrote a bunch of names down. I don't have any of your fancy reached on air stats. I was writing about it. I'm happy to hear you talk and explain, and then if you feel like asking my opinion on anything or want me to chime in,

I'm happy to any time. I have a list. Okay, so I feel like Stephen Drew is too low on these lists. Was Stephen Drew not on your names, huh? No, Stephen Drew was not on mine. I would have probably put Jed Lowry. If I were picking an Oakland A's shortstop of recent vintage, I would have maybe arguably talked myself into Jed Lowry being underrated before Drew.

But I would actually compare Drew to Lowry. Yeah. Because, all right, so a year ago, Drew was 14th on MLB trade rumors list. And all the estimates of how much he'd earned were in the 12 to $13 million range for two to three years, even though he had the qualifying offer. Of course, either those offers didn't materialize or he and Boris were looking for even more. So he set out the first couple of months of the season, finally signed on May 20th, got into his first game on June 2nd. And then he was awful after that, at least offensively. He probably would be in a position to make more now

if he had just held out the whole season, I would think, and people just hadn't seen him be that bad because he was literally the worst hitter in baseball who made 300 plate appearances. And so now he has almost fallen out of these top 50 lists or he's he's can you repeat that which part that what you just said about his being the worst hitter repeat it just how you said it he was the worst hitter in baseball who made at least 300 plate appearances okay all right yeah i thought you might have said who made more than 300 plate

appearances in which case i got i would have been able to call you a liar instead i get to point out Okay. All right. Yeah. I thought you might have said who made more than 300 plate appearances, in which case I would have been able to call you a liar. Instead, I get to point out that you have sliced that roast beef as thin as could be. Because I think he made exactly 300 plate appearances. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. So now Drew is almost out of the top 50, even though it's a weaker group of position players, And he now no longer has the draft pick cost attached because he was traded midseason.

And I'm just thinking, I mean, bad as he was and he couldn't have been worse at the plate. I'm wondering whether that is too far to fall for for anyone or for for Drew in a single season because we're basing that on an 85-game sample. And not only that, but you could load it up with a bunch of other caveats. So he missed the standard spring training experience. By the time he got back into games, he had gone seven months without facing major league pitching.

So there had to be some adjustment period there. And maybe Kendris Morales went through the same thing. He was terrible also. Drew had a hamstring thing, which is bad in that he is not the most durable player. But also his comeback was interrupted even more by that. but also his comeback was interrupted even more by that. And then he was traded midseason and then had to learn a position that he had never played professionally.

And maybe the shortstop to second base transition is not the most jarring of possible position switches, but still having to do that with little preparation is an additional demand on him. So I'm just thinking, I mean, that has to be, I'm willing to say that that is less predictive than the typical 85-game sample. Because players are used to starting play at a particular time

and going through spring training, and who knows how. I mean, he was training at Scott Boris's facility and I'm sure they had the best trainers and the best batting practice machines or whatever, but it might not be the same preparation. So given that he is still a capable shortstop by all appearances, I mean, in his 85-game sample, he was above average at short in defensive runs saved,

whereas Lowry has been the worst defensive shortstop over the past two seasons, according to the same stat. So Lowry will either continue to be a bad shortstop or will move to second, which would eat into whatever offensive advantage he has. So if Drew was a guy that we were expecting to get a three-year deal at a nice average annual value a year ago, I don't know that I'm willing to bump him down to the bottom of the list based on this strange partial season that he had. I also view Lowry as not a shortstop so in my head if I had to

choose a shortstop it would be closer because I would also dock Lowry for having to play shortstop for me you said that Drew is not the most durable player but I think he actually arguably is the most durable player who got at least 300 but no more than 300 played appearances that is true uh

i don't think this is it i i know what you're saying um but i i think that what you're so you're saying a year ago he was 15th as a free agent and to reassess by that much 14 and to reassess by that much based on one weird two-thirds of a season would be bad analysis. And that's fine, but I don't think that the 14th made any sense.

Because he was bad in 2012. He was bad in 2011. The outlier here looks like 2013. He was really bad before that for a for a couple years and um you know he he wasn't healthy either he had the broken wrist or whatever it was yeah he had the broken wrist and so um and i don't i've never really gotten steven drew's defensive reputation to be honest i don't think he's i don't i don't i don't. I don't think he's I don't know.

I don't think he's a very good defensive shortstop. I guess people do. I've never really accepted that. If I had to make a decision that mattered, I would probably do a bit more research than just saying a thing.

But when I look at him, I don't think good defense particularly. So I'm not giving him a lot of extra love for that. But yeah, I just don't, I mean, I didn't, I don't know. I just don't think that Steven Drew's career is best defined by 2013 at this point. That's, yeah, that's fair. I mean, he is sort of the only shortstop on this list or i mean the only true shortstop i mean there's there's lottery you don't think of as a shortstop and then there's as drubal cabrera

who's not really a shortstop so that is a point in in drew's favor i think if you expect that his bat will bounce back to some extent, which it almost has to. I guess. If you are the team that's looking for a shortstop and your alternative is to play your long reliever there on the days he's not working, then yeah, Stephen Drew makes an awful lot of sense.

If you're that team, then he makes more sense than signing all sorts of players who are better than him. I just don't think he's actually better than those players. Okay. Yeah, I don't know. You're getting a little worked up over here. This might have been a bad idea. I guess I have a lower opinion of Jed Lowry than you do.

Maybe that's what this comes down to. Could be. He's not the most durable player either. No, he's not. And also he had too many plate appearances to qualify. That's true. So give me a name. Just one and then you guess whether I'm high or low and how high or how low.

Sure. All right. I'll give you a name. There's probably two that I feel most strongly about. Okay. So one, Jason Grilly. Who do I have Jason Grilly as the bargain version of? Hmm. Let's see who's ahead of him.

So Grilly on this list at MLB Trade Rumors is 47. So I'm guessing that you think that that is too low. It couldn't be too high. And actually, to be fair, I was using RJ's list. Okay. All of them are similar for the most part. All right. I'm guessing Rafael Soriano? Yeah, exactly. Okay.

And I just, I mean, you know, this kind of goes a year ago, we thought nothing of Rafael Soriano, right? He was totally on the outs. I mean, I remember his BP annual comment was fairly scathing or doomsaying. And his strikeout rate had gotten ridiculous. He looked like Jose Valverde in the just before collapse years of jose valverde where like these things all these peripherals were dropping he was still getting saves because he was famous and paid a lot but um everything was dropping and you just got the sense that it was going to collapse and then it didn't rafael soriano bounced back a lot

uh and he had a good year and so that was the wrong assessment of him but you know it there were there are still some issues with his performance. He obviously lost the job by the end of the year. Nobody had faith in him by the end of the year again. And Grilly, though, had basically one very bad half. But over the past three years, other than that one bad half, has been extremely good, very consistent, good FIPS, good ERAs, insane strikeout rates. And the strikeout rate obviously dropped quite

a bit from 2013. And so, I don't know, I'm not like super high on Grilly, but after he got traded, he was much better, much better. He didn't allow a home run. He got back to his regular 4-1 or whatever strikeout to walk rate. He's a guy who I think is he reminds me of like

JJ Putts about four years ago. He's just a guy that feels like he's good. He's sturdy. He's good and sturdy. And his ERA doesn't really reflect how well he pitched last year. So yeah, I'm on board with him. Okay.

You want my other one? Yeah. Chase Headley. Yeah, okay. So I've got him here too. For Sandoval? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. So I mean, these are both almost name brands i mean hedley is not obscure or anything but compared to sandoval who's near the top of all these lists hedley is anywhere from five to ten spots down generally and yeah maybe there's not that much difference between them i mean there's there's maybe a tendency to think about sandoval's postseason performance which was excellent whereas if the giants had not made the playoffs we'd be thinking about sandoval's september performance which was not good at all and any team that is going to consider signing him will be considering his whole season,

not just the recent highlights. And his production declined slightly even after adjusting for the offensive environment for the third straight season. He is one of the worst base runners in baseball or was this past year. He is a very, very good defender, but Headley is about as good as it gets defensively at third base. And of course, there's the conditioning question.

And Sandoval is 28 and he's looking for a six-year deal. But I don't know whether teams will treat him as if he is an older player because of the build and the on-again off-again conditioning efforts and yeah Headley great defender and decent hitter not 2012 MVP candidate level but over the last years, he's been about as valuable as Sandoval anyway. His projections for next season are comparable. He kind of recovered after, of course, making a mechanical adjustment midseason. Started gripping his bat a different way or the way that he had gripped it before changing his grip. And suddenly he started hitting again.

And so, yeah, they seem fairly comparable to me. Can we speed round the rest of mine? Yeah, sure. All right, so why don't you rate them on a scale of one to three where one is you just disagree with the premise, two is you agree that they're an off-brand substitute, and three is you think that the lower-ranked guy is actually better than

the higher ranked guy, which three should be rare, ones and twos should be common. Ready? Okay. All right. Andrew Miller, off-brand David Robertson. Okay. I guess I'll give that a two, I suppose. His brand is pretty high right now too.

The only difference is the saves. I guess, I brand is pretty high right now, too. So the only difference is the saves. So I guess, I don't know. I mean, Miller also seems like a guy that someone is possibly going to pay too much for. I think that on the MLB trade rumors list, they're closer together. On the prospectus one, Robertson is ranked 12th and miller is ranked 20th so that's a not inconsequential gap but okay uh all right um uh brandon mccarthy as the off-brand urban santana yeah uh i considered making some some kind of m McCarthy comp somewhere, but the thing that prevented me from doing that was that all the people who were ranked ahead of McCarthy had kind of differentiated themselves durability-wise. I mean, I could compare, say, James Shields to Brandon McCarthy or something.

Like Jeff Sullivan made that quick comparison in one of his posts today, just pointing out that their projected peripherals are pretty much the same for next year. But Shields is a guy who's been pitching 200 plus innings forever. And McCarthy is a guy who just did that for the first time and has had significant injury issues in the past. So that is the differentiator between them. And I guess, I mean, Santana over the last five seasons, his average 200-plus innings, he's fairly durable. He's very durable. He's the only guy that I can remember having elbow problems as bad as he had that never had Tommy John.

Like they just went away. I still don't know what happened there. I feel like the press release must have been wrong. Yeah, so I don't know. Performance-wise, sure, but I guess I'd kind of give that a one, maybe, in that Santana is a guy that you're getting for his workhorse qualities, and McCarthy, that's the risk with him. Okay.

AJ Burnett as the off-brand Justin Masterson. Does Justin Masterson have a brand? Dude, he's 18th on Trade Rumors. Really? Yeah. Wow. He's much lower on RJs. Yeah, he should be, I think.

Yeah, sure, I'll buy that. I'd probably buy that with a bunch of pitchers below him. All right. Let's see. Kendrys Morales as the off-brand Billy Butler. Hmm. Yeah. Okay.

I guess so. I was trying to come up with an off-brand Victor Martinez just because Victor Martinez having a career year at age 35 seems like a potential for danger if he's looking for a four-year deal. And I was trying to come up with an equivalent for him who maybe wouldn't be as risky. Stephen Drew. But you have to go pretty far from Victor Martinez down to Butler or Morales or Mike Morse maybe so so yeah I I would I would buy Morales as an off-brand butler but even butler's brand is off yeah yeah uh and last one uh Colby Lewis as the off-brand Jason Hamill yeah I had Lewis uh as a Volquez off-brand guy but But yeah, I was thinking Lewis with a bunch of guys. I thought about doing Lewis and Hamill, but then that seemed like maybe a little bit aggressive to me.

But Lewis definitely compared to a bunch of guys on the list, like Vogelsang or Horang. Gavin Floyd. Yeah. Lewis is not ranked on the mlb trade rumors list he's not even honorably mentioned on that list and i agree that that he i mean he was coming off missing a full 2013 season he had an awful first half he was somewhat better down the stretch and i generally like colby le Lewis, although he's not durable. But yeah, I would take him over most of those back of the rotation guys above him.

Okay. I tried to do one with Corotta and Shields. Just obviously they are at different stages of their careers. If you're looking for a guy who's going to be a mainstay of your rotation, then you're not going to go with Kuroda, who is either going to retire or sign a one-year deal with the Yankees or possibly a West Coast team. But if you're looking just for a single season of Shields-level performance, you could not really do better than Hiroki Kuroda, who has basically been that guy. He's been incredibly consistent. He usually pitches just over 200 innings, and he's roughly as effective as Shields. So

if you were trying to avoid paying for James Shields with his heavy workloads into his late thirties. You just needed a short-term stop gap. You could go with Corona. Okay. That's enough discussion for today. So we will do a listener email show next week. Please send us listeners meals at podcast at baseball perspectives.com. Please rate and review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild and support our sponsor by going to baseball reference.com and subscribing

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