Decisions, Decisions

Here’s my problem with Fuentes:
http://www.denverpost.com/rockies/ci_6270778

And really, I don’t know much about him either… being that he’s in the NL and out west.

Maybe it’s a personal bias against closers, but I’d rather skimp on a closer and spend whatever cash you have elsewhere. If the Indians, let’s say, can trade for Brian Roberts, then I could live with Fuentes at 3/30. I just see getting a second baseman as the priority, even if it looks like the closer signing will come first.

I’ll agree with you up to a point, but two things to say in dissent: a. the Indians haven’t won anything at all without signing high priced free agents (which is not to say we should reverse course, but let’s not idealize the situation we’re in); b. the Indians have had important contributions from free agent starting pitchers over the past few years: Millwood, then Byrd. I don’t think they should break the bank and spend enormous sums on a guy like Rodriguez, but I do think they need to upgrade, particularly on the pitching side. I will not be upset at all if they don’t do anything big in the infield — it needs work, obviously, but I think, if we’re going to spend big money, it should be on pitching — and I’ll accept the view that we should be flexible and go for either a closer or starter, depending on which is the better value, although I’d try to find a starter if all things were equal.

I don’t think it has to be an either/or situation at this point. Most of our current core is locked up already.

I don’t view Jensen Lewis as a compelling reason not to sign a back end reliever. 6.9 K/G, 3.6 BB/G, and 35.3 GB% looks a lot more like a middle reliever than it does back end guy. His strikeout rate was better in ‘07 but that was an even smaller sample size and this year’s numbers seem to more closely match his scouting reports.

I think it ultimately isn’t that helpful to look at free agent salaries in the context of the overall budget.

As a big-picture strategy, yes, obviously — this is what drives the Indians to be focused squarely on internal development.

Ultimately, though, you put together as much of your team as possible with cheap young guys, and then lock up the arbitration years, and then get some hometown discount extensions if you can. After having done all that, however, you only have as much team as you have, and if it’s 85% of a contender, then you need to go out and buy that extra 15%.

Where do you buy it? Well, if you can pry loose a Triple-A prospect about to explode — Hafner, Asdrubal — then good for you, but the market seems to have gotten too smart for that. Ultimately, you’re going to have to sign free agents. Once you’re at that point, there is no sense in holding them to the same dollars-per-win standard as the rest of the roster — it’s not even possible, and it leads only to the conclusion that you should never sign any free agents — ever.

So we’ve got a whole bunch of super-cheap talent … Reyes, Laffey, Sowers, Huff, Jackson, Perez, Meloan, Garko, Asdrubal, Barfield, Marte, Francisco, Gutierrez, Shoppach. Then you’ve got some great values on lockup deals … Lee, Carmona, Betancourt, Peralta, Sizemore. What are we paying those guys, maybe $30 million?

Then, some hometown extensions … Westbrook and Hafner. Not getting a lot of value there, and that’s another $25 million. Finally, the free agents … Dellucci, Carroll, Kobayashi … another $10 million. (I’m not looking any of this up, so it may be significantly off.)

My point being, you can’t look at a $10 million free agent salary in the context of the whole budget — at the very least, you have to exclude the super-cheap and value-lockup guys, who make up 80 percent of the club. We have perhaps $50 million to spend on the other 20% of the club, so the real question here is: Should a closer with a very strong track record get 20% of that?

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/C/shin-soo-choo.shtml

That’s one way to look at it.

Another way is, in 2008 we had:

• 3 months without Sabathia
• 4 months without Westbrook
• 3 months without Carmona
• no contribution from Hafner
• almost nothing from Garko
• 4 months without Victor
• no effective bullpen at all

… and still went 81-81.

This a good point, as it stands now I am much more sceptical of us running starters who can go deep into games on a regular basis besides Lee and Carmona (and even he isn’t a certainty). Adding bullpen arms or simply just strengthening the depth in the pen is a good idea to brace for the worst case scenarios for the starting rotation (injury, ineffectiveness, etc.)

Cubs must have been worried Wood and Howry would accept arbitration. I’d be wary of Kerry. The Cubs seem to be trying to whistle nonchalantly as they hurry him out the door. Well, there’s always Daryle Ward.

Being exposed to New York sports talk way too much, it definitely seems like the Mets are using Fuentes to drive down the K-Rod asking price. They appear to be set on whichever of those two they can get.

Yeah, that’s funny, because Hendry made those comments about how Wood (and his family) were deserving of a multi-year deal. But he wasn’t going to offer it, and isn’t even banking on another team offering it.

I say get him.

I think he’s already starting to experience some issues, actually (this is also in response to Buckeye Brad’s comment about GM’s hesitating with K-Rod so far). If you look at his average velocity, Rodriguez has lost at least a MPH off his fastball every year since 2006. The same trend can be seen in his slider as well. As a result, Rodriguez has started using his fastball and slider less each year (biggest drop off between 2006-2007) and started using his changeup almost twice as much in 2008.

One might argue that Rodriguez is sacrificing velocity for better control, but I don’t think that’s the case. At the same time his velocity was sinking, his K/BB ratio was also dropping. K/BB was 3.50 in 2006, 2.65 in 2007, and 2.26 this year. His WHIP did the same thing starting at 1.10, then 1.25, and 1.28 in 2008. His peripherals have gotten worse three years in a row (I have a theory his ERA was kept low this year by a good defense and a bit of luck).

If K-Rod was making any intentional adjustments to his delivery during this stretch, it doesn’t look like it really did him any favors. I think a lot of teams have caught on to these trends and are being extra-careful with him.

Right now, I agree with the ticking time bomb analogy.