PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - FanGraphs Senior Writer Dan Szymborski Talks Greinke Trade & More

Episode Date: August 23, 2019

FanGraphs Senior Writer & ESPN contributor Dan Szymborski joins the show to delve deep into the marrows of the Zack Greinke trade. We also discuss the Zac Gallen/Jazz Chisholm trade and Ketel Marte's breakout season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are honored to have a very special guest with us here on the Rattle podcast. Today, his name is Dan Ziborski. He is a senior writer for Fangraphs and also a current ESPN. The contributor was with ESPN for a long time as a loads of experience in the baseball world, especially on the analytic side. Dan, thank you so much for joining the show today. We really appreciate it. Well, thanks for having me, Jesse. Absolutely.

So let's go ahead and jump in. this interview was initially scheduled right on the heels of this giant trade that the Arizona Diamondbacks made with Zach Rankie being moved to the Houston Astros. The Diamondbacks in return, of course. They got Josh Rojas, they got J.B. Bukascus, Corbin Martin, and Seth Beer. The Diamondbacks also sent $24 million in cash over to the Houston Astros in this trade. Dan, I want to jump into some specifics, but I'll just go ahead and let's just get started with just give me your initial thoughts on this deal when it went down. I was personally shocked when it

happened. It was kind of a buzzer-beater type trade that the details didn't come out until after the trade deadline. What were your initial thoughts when you saw all these names come out? I was surprised, too. I mean, there had been talk about Granky being traded last winter, and the money never quite worked out, so I wasn't really looking for Granky to be traded. and and by the time it happened, I was hearing, I didn't hear any buzz going into the trading. Because even if you don't know exactly what's going on, sometimes you hear from an agent or from a teen that something's about to happen related to a player. But I didn't hear anything. So I was quite shocked when the trade was announced.

I was actually in the bathroom when I came out and I saw my editor saying, can you raise something about the Grinky trade? I'm like, what Grinky trade? So I quickly found out what happened. And I think it was a solid trade for both sides. I mean, yeah, he was terrific for the Diamondbacks. But they were able to throw in some money and get a pretty good prospect hall for Granky. A better than they would have if they had traded him last winter, I think. And for the Astros, it was a necessary trade because, you know, they're in win now mode.

And as much as I like the prospects. and I rate someone like beer higher than a lot of other people do because I think he might not have the highest ceiling, but he has a pretty high floor. I think it was a good trade for the Astros, and it was justifiable for both sides, which is sometimes not as fun because I can't get mad about something. That's what we really like to do is analysts, right? If we don't have anything to get mad about, we just don't know what to do with ourselves. Yeah, it's like, I'm happy.

I don't understand this feeling. Right, right. It is very odd. I'm with you there. Dan, what was especially funny for me about this trade is that I wrote an article for our website for the Rattle that literally made the case for why the Diamondbacks should keep Zach Granky. I wrote this article probably about 16 hours before this trade went down.

It was literally the night before. And so I was pretty firm that Zach Ranky was an absolutely. a great asset, but a great asset that was probably best harnessed off the roster, or on the roster, than off the roster, just given the nature of his contract and just how difficult it is to move a guy like that, and also considering just how good he was for the diamond backs. And the diamond backs are obviously at the time of the trade, were in the thick of the wild card race. They still, you could make the argument, they're still in the thick of the wild card race right now.

Zach Rankie certainly would have helped them with that. And looking forward to next season with the Diamondbacks slated to hopefully get Luke Weaver back, potentially Taiwan Walker. If they can get a little bit healthier, the offense has been pretty good. I think they could maybe do some things to fix the bullpen over the offseason as well. Zach Granky looked to me to be a pretty good asset for the Diamondbacks to have moving forward. And they certainly did better in this trade than I was expecting to be possible. So I am also with you in that I think both sides did pretty well for themselves.

This is by no means an embarrassment for the Diamondbacks. But before this deal went down, I was pretty adamant that the Diamond Back should keep Granky. And now that we've gotten a chance to see Mike Leak pitch a little bit in his place, the just severity of the gap between Zach Ranky and Mike Leak has become very apparent. And it's hard to imagine where's the Diamondbacks' next true number one starter going to come from? I'm not sure if any of those guys coming over in the trade necessarily fit that bill. I'm not sure if anyone in their farm system is necessarily going to get to that point. So, Dan, I'm curious what you think.

Try to work through my thoughts here. Was I crazy thinking that the diamond back should keep Zach Granke? I think you can make a case regardless of where you go because it wouldn't have been the end of the world if they had kept Granky. I think that they were looking at it at kind of an opportunistic thing. and they had the opportunity to really get good prospects for for for for granky and i don't think it precludes them paying money for a starter again soon uh i i don't think that Arizona is in they're they're not really in fire sale mode so to speak right uh because there's there's a benefit to making these kinds of trades before your team is bad i mean yeah they're only they're in

contention for the wild card but when you're a 500-ish team and you make these trades you're doing it before, you know, your team is a disaster, which gives you an opportunity to turn things around quickly. There's no reason that Arizona can't be competitive in 2020. They generally done very well with the trades that they've made. And I mean, it does hurt the wild card this year because no one can replace Granky and the weird, you know, change up that's faster than his fastball. Right. Which still amuses me. It's like he's confounded all the pitch algorithms that classify the pitch classifiers.

But I think they saw an opportunity and they had to take it. I don't think they were desperate to trade, Granky, but the opportunity arose. If they were truly desperate to save that money, I don't think they would have purchased better prospects. But they did because they did have some flexibility because when you do things, when you're not desperate, you do better in the end. Right. Yeah, that's a good point. Let's go ahead and jump into exactly what the Diamondbacks got in return. I know you mentioned Seth Beer just a moment ago.

We'll kind of go two players at a time here, so we'll pair together the two offensive guys, the Diamondbacks got in the deal. Josh Rojas and Seth Beer. Dan, give me your thoughts about these two guys moving forward. Beer, of course, I mean, he has pretty good power potential, really good power potential. I'm probably underselling it by describing it that. way. He was never really the favorite among the prospect minders because the prospect crowd likes those all-around players with gigantic upside that might be, you know, the next

Hattice or Cunuch Jr. or Juan Soto. And Sespier is not that guy. He's not particularly young. He's going to be 23 next month. And he's not particularly well-rounded. He's a hitter. And that's pretty much what he does. He hits the ball and he hits the ball hard. that of course has value and having a league average first baseman for possibly several years is a really valuable thing it's just not always necessarily the most exciting for for the prospect guys so so i tend to be uh and i think average players have a lot of value i mean you look at free agency and how much some of the the guy has cost at least before the the kind of market correction someone like beer can bring in a lot of value even if if if you're a lot of the guys aren't, you know, even calling him one of their top 10 prospects. Go ahead. Let's go ahead and move on to Josh Rojas, who I believe if I'm remembering correctly, I think you wrote in your Fangraph's article following this trade that Josh Rojas could

potentially be like the biggest get that the diamond backs wind up with in this trade, which I thought was really interesting. I mean, if you look at the numbers that he posted in the minor leagues this season, he was knocking the cover off the ball. And it wasn't, you know, just little, you know, dinky extra base hits here and there. He hit right around 20 home runs through through the course of his minor league season. And of course, since he's been called up to the major leagues, he's gotten off to a bit of a slow start, but it has shown some potential certainly over a very

small sample size. What do you think the diamondbacks are getting in Josh Rojas? Well, one thing to remember about Rojas that people may not realize if they don't, if they're not familiar with his record, is that his breakout this season for home runs wasn't, from AAA. Right. Exactly. Because he hit pretty, he pit really well for Corpus Christi when he was in the organization. He hit eight home runs in like, what was like 180, 190 played appearances.

And of course he hit more home runs at Pacific Coast League, but it wasn't primarily driven by that. The eight home runs alone would have been nearly, was already on pace to set his minor league high personally for him. And he's a high average hitter. He does draw walks. he's a good, he's an interesting player. And I like interesting because he's also a guy who's played pretty much every position in the minor leagues.

Right. You wouldn't want to start him at shortstop, but he can play. He can fake shortstop. And again, that's the kind of thing that has real value. You look at what teams like the Dodgers have done with versatility in which they can play players all over the place. It gives you a lot of roster flexibility to have guys like that. And I think Rojas is kind of the ultimate when I talk about low ceiling high floor. He's not going to be a superstar, but he's probably pretty likely to be a contributor at the major league level for a while.

Not even an all-star or anything like that, but just someone who just fills out the roster really well. I think it's good that the Rockies are playing him. I think he should start somewhere pretty regularly for the course of the season. I think it's in the team's interest to do that. So we'll see how they use him over the next month. According to Mike Hayeson, I was in the conference call that he did with the media following the big Zach Ranky trade. And he spoke probably more highly of Corbyn Martin than any of the other prospects. He talked about how the Diamondbacks have tried to acquire Corvin Martin in the past,

and they were unable to do so because the price was too high. And ironically, now that he's had Tommy John's surgery, this opened up the door for the Diamondbacks to be able to come in and actually acquire this starting pitcher that they've wanted for so long. I think there's certainly a lot to like. People tend to have some different opinions about Corbyn Martin. I've heard anywhere from a number two starter to a number four starter profile on him moving forward. Obviously, the Tommy John surgery just happened a couple of months ago. There's definitely some waiting and some patience that are in order with a guy like Corbyn Martin.

But he was pitching at the Major League level already this season. So he's not a guy who you're going to have to wait for to come back. and then also have to wait for him to, you know, develop again in the minor leagues. He's pretty much already there as a major league starter on some level. And the Diamondback stands certainly seem to be really excited about this guy. Yeah, and it goes in with the Diamondbacks attempt to be opportunistic. Because as you say, if Martin were healthy, I don't think that the Aster necessarily trade him. Right.

But in the situation the Aster's are in, they're more interested in guys who can contribute right now. and in 2020, then they are necessarily in someone who might be good in 2021, 2021, and on. So that gives Arizona, you know, that gives them the potential to do something that a true contender would have trouble doing. Because any of the other contenders that are, you know, winning, you know, 95 games this season, it's hard for them to make this kind of trade because you can't trade Granky. If the Yankees had Granky, they couldn't trade him. If the Asteros had already had Granky, obviously they would. and trade him. The Cubs, all these teams, they wouldn't be able to trade Granky for

opportunity like this, but Arizona could. And I, and Martin, I mean, he has, I mean, fastball slider change up. He is a good, there's no pressing reason other than help that he might have to go to the bullpen. And that's always a nice thing when you're not already thinking about the bullpen for a picture. I mean, obviously you have to see where he is when he comes back. But he was quite solid in AAA this year. It's, it's quite difficult. to be solid in AAA this year. Right. When you're a picture, given what, given that they had the major league ball this year,

which has been interesting to say the least. The last guy the Diamondbacks got in this deal is the other right-handed pitcher, J.B. Bukascus, who seems to have some pretty good stuff. That's kind of the word on him. We've seen velocity up into 98 miles an hour around that range. I believe he's got a big breaking ball that a lot of people like, maybe potential for a change-up as a second breaking pitch as well. The numbers, Dan, don't really seem to bear out, you know,

excellent future starting pitcher, at least not yet. This year in AA so far, he's looking at a 544 ERA. The whip is at 1.62. So he's been hit pretty hard. He walks a lot of guys. He's only made a couple of appearances so far since joining the Diamondbacks organization. Neither has gone particularly well. But I think when people see Bukascus, I think they're more looking at the stuff and what it could project to long term.

But it seems to be pretty clear on the flip side that he probably has some more development yet to do. Yeah, he's not a complete finished product. And people forget, I mean, he was only drafted in 2017. He missed a lot of time to the injuries in a car accident. So he's not really all that experience professionally. So he's still a work in progress. And that's another example of a picture who's more useful. to a team that's looking for future opportunities

than a team trying to win now. But Koskis, I mean, he's not really someone who would help the Astros win the World Series this year or next year. And that, from their point of view, makes him a lot less interesting to have on the roster. And his stuff is still developing. I mean, obviously he throws hard.

I mean, he's still working on a change-up slider cutter. I mean, those pitches aren't all, you know, major league quality pitches at this point. But a picture, too, where those might be. And it's, and like Martin, it's, we're not really talking about bullpen yet. But even in the worst case scenario, he can probably contribute in the bullpen, which is still something. And that's the nice thing about a picture. You don't necessarily always get something with a pitching prospect. I know baseball prospectus always had that, that acronym Tintestap,

which was there's no such thing as a pitching prospect. So, so anything you can get. I mean, it's a good thing. As I said, I like to trade. I like who they, all the pictures that, all the players they acquire, they all have something interesting about them. And I use the word interesting a lot, but when you're not dealing with someone who's like a clink, you know, top 10 prospect in baseball, interesting is what you're looking for. Do you think it's fair to say, Dan, that at least from my standpoint when I first saw the list of guys, the Diamondbacks got, there's certainly, I think, like, I think you said the perfect word, interesting, that, you know, that there's intrigue with each of these guys and what they could potentially bring to a major league roster down the

future down the road in the future. To me, though, it seems like there's probably not really a slam dunk here. You know, there's probably not a Walker Bueller. There's probably not, you know, a Tatis or anyone of that nature. These guys are players who can absolutely contribute at the major league level, which there's something to be said for. But the Diamondbacks future number one starter or future, you know, staple in their lineup as a position player for years and years to come, probably.

not in this trade. Do you think that would be fair to say? I think that's fair. No one's a guarantee. Someone could be, and a few of the guys could be. But there's no slam dunk. You're not going to get a Walker Bueller essentially for this trade. If Arizona required Walker, Walker Bueller type in return for Granky, Granky would still be in Arizona. It's as simple as that. Teams are very, to get an elite prospect for this kind of trade, you need to find kind of a team that's in the perfect situation to, you know, pay through the nose for something. I think the best example would probably be the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Robert Torres trade for Aralas Chapman that, that the, that the, that the, that the, that the, that the, that the, that was a team

that had been trying to win the World Series for a century, felt they really needed a closer, and they were in a position to over trade. And, of course, a lot of people look at that, and they see their players not being traded for Torres, and they're like, why, why can't we get it? It's like you can only get that in certain situations. The Cubs, if they had another Torres and then needed a Chapman, they would make that same trade now, I don't believe. Right. So you can get in trouble by being a little too greedy.

Greed's good, but it's, there are limits. Let's go ahead and talk about the flip side of this trade. Obviously, maybe a little bit less Diamondbacks related, but I think Diamondbacks fans are still going to be interested to hear your thoughts on this. Zach Granky has been an absolute fascinating pitcher ever since the Diamondbacks brought him over. I know a good portion of your article that you wrote about this trade was just analyzing Zach Granky and just all of the bizarre methods that he is used to remain a basically elite starting pitcher. And there was a time, Dan, when if we go back to 2016, when this deal first went down between Granky and the Diamondbacks, This was looked at as potentially one of the worst free agent contract signed in MLB history

because he posted an ERA well north of four in his first year he was getting knocked all the way around the ballpark. And for a guy who was entering a six-year contract was, I believe at the time, the highest annual value of a contract in Major League history. You know, this was at one point thought up to be a major clunker for the Diamondbacks. and somehow Zach Ranky completely turned things around. He continues to evolve and reinvent himself every single year. And I think, I mean, you take into account his personality too. He is absolutely one of the most fascinating players to play this game. Yeah, I know.

I love Grinky. I love when he's so blunt about things. Oh, he's very blunt. Yes, very, very blunt. When he was talking about free agency after the Dodgers, you know, players tend to give this kind of wishy-washy. I just want to play for a winner. I want to go somewhere that I had to talk about my family.

And Greg E. Preymec said, I'm looking for the maximum salary. And in the end, that's where players usually do, but they don't want to come off cross is so mercenary. Right, right. But I like that kind of cutting honesty about the whole thing. But his reinvention is, it's harder to do. I mean, even for very solid pictures, a lot of pictures can't reinvent themselves because it's, It's hard to be a major leaguer as it is. Now you have to be a major league.

You're doing something completely different than what you did before. I think back at Frank Tanana, because Frank Tanana had a long, long career. He spent half of it as a classic power picture. And people who were young enough like me, who only saw him at the end of the career, that's hard to remember that he was a flamethrower with the angels, then got injured, and then it became kind of a junkball thrower the rest of the of his career and he was successful in both both ways. And that's not, that's not hard.

I mean, Granky was never like a 98, 99 mile per hour guy. But his fast, he has lost velocity over the years. There's always this moment every spring training where he seems to be throwing 85 and everyone panics. But it usually gets a little bit better. I mean, yeah, he's under 90 now more often than not. But he's evolved and that's hard to do. And he's succeeded with that.

Another interesting trade that the Diamondbacks made at the trade deadline kind of shifting back over to the D-back side of things, they made an absolutely fascinating deal. The kind of thing you don't really see in baseball or really in any sport very often. The Diamondbacks traded Jazz Chisholm, who by many accounts was their number one overall prospect across their entire organization. They traded him away to the Miami Marlins and in return got Zach Gallen. and Dan, you mentioned earlier, you know, it's really hard to be good in AAA with the nature of how the ball is flying out of the ballpark and now that they're using the Major League Baseball down there in what was already a very hitter-friendly league. His numbers at AAA this year, he was 9 and 1 in the Pacific Coast League with a 1.77 ERA. He had 112 strikeouts compared to 17 walks over 91 in the third innings. His opposing batting average was 153.

He put up just absolutely ridiculous numbers in AAA. And even at the Major League level, Zach Allen has looked really, really good for the Diamondbacks overall. He's had some control issues, but he's done a really nice job working around some trouble. And so the Diamondbacks get a very intriguing piece in this deal of 24-year-old who's controllable, who seems to be a pretty good Major League starter already. And on the flip side, they traded away their number one overall prospect.

Dan, help us sort through this. This was very interesting, very confusing in some ways. Why do you think each team was motivated to make a deal like this? Well, when I talk about the Diamondbacks looking for an opportunity, they're not in fire sale mode. They still expect to compete in 2020. I don't think that's a deluded belief. Right. So once you've traded away, Granky, you also want to look at someone who can help you in 2020 if you can.

Once you lose Granky, you do need to find another starting picture. Gallon is, again, a fascinating picture who has, who's less of a risk than a lot of pitching prospects just because he's had success in the high minors. And he's gone through the pharmacist, gone through the miners pretty quickly. I mean, he wasn't drafted, you know, 10 years ago. Right. Or anything. And, I mean, he had nearly like an 8 to 1 or 7 to 1 somewhere around there, strike out

to walk ratio. in the minors. He was surviving the Pacific Coast League without allowing a ton of home runs. And it's someone who, I mean, not replace Granky, but someone who kind of alleviates that fall. So they can say, hey, we got four prospects for Granky, but we need to get a little on the backside to continue to be good in 2020. And I think they did it. I mean, it does hurt to lose Chisholm simply because, I mean, he was their top. prospecting has a lot of potential. But I think that it was reasonable, even though I think you can

disagree with that. It's not like it's so obvious a trade that you say, no, it'd be ridiculous not to trade them because I can see either way what you want to do. Last thing for you, Dan, the Diamondbacks have an MVP candidate on their roster, a pretty legitimate MVP candidate. Obviously, I think, you know, it's probably a Yelich or Bellinger race at this point. But But Ketel Marte is absolutely not too far on the outskirts of that conversation. He has really had a phenomenal season for the Diamondbacks this year. They have team control over Ketel Marte through his age 31 season, which I believe is about six years from now.

This is a guy who has really burst on the scene for the Diamondbacks. And it's weird to be talking about a Diamondbacks MVP candidate who's not named Paul Goldschmidt because, you know, he's been a staple in that conversation for years and years. But Dan Ketel Marte has absolutely been phenomenal this season as a super utility guy. He covers so much ground at every position that he plays. And he is swinging the bat really, really well for the Diamondbacks this season. Oh, absolutely. I think that the fun thing about Marte is that he doesn't even need to be having this season to be a significant contributor. Right. I mean, you go back to last year, he was, he had an above average war.

He had an OPS near 800. He was playing, you know, multiple positions. I mean, he was still playing shortstop. He played a lot of second base. Did he play any third base last year? I know he made an appearance a few years ago, but that's not really important. He's a versatile player. And even if he doesn't keep all of this breakout, let's say he only hits, say, 20 home runs next year and only hits 290 instead of 320.

That's still a really, really good player who they're getting at a just. a steal. Right. Because it's like five million a year, I think. Yeah. Averaging at least a guaranteed portion of the contract. That's highway robbery already, even when he's not having this season. And he is a legitimate MVP candidate if you didn't have Yel Achen Bellinger.

Right. And it's going to come down to Yelich and Bellinger. I don't see any way around that. I vote for the rookies this year, not the MVP. but if I was voting for the MVP right now, it would be either Yellinger or Bellinger. I'm actually glad I don't have to make that choice because it's really, really tight right now.

Dan, thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate it as always. Oh, it's always fun. Thanks for having me on again.