Baseball America Hot Sheet
Featuring three Indians this week - Carlos Carrasco, Carlos Santana and Hector Rondon
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Andy Marte used to be hot sheet. Maybe he still will be some day?
by JulioBernazard on Aug 14, 2009 2:48 PM EDT reply actions 3 recs
It can’t be easy for Dodgers fans to see both Santana and Josh Bell in this week’s top 10. Los Angeles traded both prospects in deadline deals for, respectively, Casey Blake in ’08 and George Sherrill this season.
Ha ha, stupid Dodgers.
I can’t tell if this is meant as sarcasm — I would have gladly given up a Carlos Santana and a Josh Bell (whoever that is) for last year’s playoff appearance and this year’s .600 record. I don’t feel like we should be calling any other team stupid, given how far and how fast the Indians have fallen.
but they didn’t make the playoffs because of blake or have a .600 record because of sherrill. they probably could have had these things and kept those two great prospects as well.
Results are all that matter; we can’t make specific value judgments on what events happened before the results. Just ask Chuck.
Everybody should get ice cream every day.
we can’t make specific value judgments on what events happened before the results
Mostly cuz we don’t – and won’t – know all of the events that happened before hand. Why did the Dodgers FO decide that they needed a decent third baseman instead of a catching prospect? We don’t know. Are the Dodgers going to the play-offs this year, while the Indians go golfing? Yes. Which FO consistently makes the better moves? Who do you think?
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
Not at all.
Dodgers 2009 payroll per Cots $100M
Indians 2009 payroll same reference $81M
It’s difficult to compare the two clubs directly on performance/payroll alone but, just for the hell of it, let’s look at $/win.
Indians $1.65M/win
Dodgers $1.45M/win
It’s rough I’ll admit, but the bottom line is the Dodger’s FO has been more efficient in their spending than the Indians FO. At some point we need to stop making excuses for Shapiro and Company.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
There is a lot more going on here (beginning with the Dodgers’ divisional affiliation), but it’s hard to rationalize that LA’s FO has been more “efficient” that the Tribe’s. Each dollar does not have the same value in terms of “buying” wins. The last $19m the Dodgers spent may well represent the difference between Manny and Dellucci, for instance. It takes X amount of dollars to field any sort of baseball club; it’s the marginal dollars beyond this baseline level that make the difference (in most cases) between major-league talent and high-quality major-league talent. If the Indians don’t have the money to match the Dodgers’ spending dollar-for-dollar, those high-end, more valuable dollars never come into play for us. We have to spend wisely, hope to catch lightning in a bottle with a few good FA signings, develop from within, and hope for the best. The Dodgers, on the other hand, can afford to pay Juan Pierre and/or Andruw Jones to ride the pine and still be viable. In the framework of their market, have they done their job? Obviously. Have the Indians? Measured only by results, no. But then, how can we compare the results of two separate chains of events when the variables were uncontrolled?
Everybody should get ice cream every day.
Jason Schmidt was not on their 25 man roster on opening day a, neither was Andruw Jones. That’s a nice 17 million for nothing.
by rockemsockem on Aug 15, 2009 3:49 AM EDT up reply actions
This I will give you: the Dodgers’ FO has definitely gotten better results. However, with the disparity in available cash, they are functionally playing with a stacked deck. The Dodgers can afford (perhaps) to go out and get a free agent catcher rather than having to develop one. The Indians don’t have that luxury, so they have to make deals like this one. Because we can’t control for variables like market size, we can never know which front office is “better,” just that each of them has an approach suited to its environment. The bottom line is that the Dodgers made the playoffs and we didn’t; how much of that is credited to the front offices respective bodies of work can be estimated but is hard to truly know.
In a way, I appreciate what you do here Chuck. While I can never say that I agree with your view point, it’s good to have a foil here telling us that results matter, lest we have a monoculture than worships at the shrine of good small-market deals. With that said, I still think you’re wrong most of the time.
Everybody should get ice cream every day.
I agree with everything you’ve said here, except the part about me being wrong most of the time. Most of the time what I am is realistic. That being said I gotta ask. “What’s the goal here? Win a GM of the Year Award or a World Series?”
Life is unfair, and one of Life’s greatest imbalances is the economic structure of baseball. Sure Shapiro’s got it a lot tougher than Mannion, or Cashman or Epstien. So what, this isn’t likely to change any time soon. Like I said before, our FO has to be flawless – that’s right flawless – for us to win a WS. Cashman and Mannion, not so much. But Mannion has to be more perfect – that would be make fewer mistakes – than Cashman or Epstein. Shapiro’s lot is tougher, but not as tough Glass’s or Huntington’s. Again, so what? All the NY’s and Boston’s of the league hasta do is find – make that purchase – great on-the-field talent and can make the Andruw Jones, Carl Pavano type screw up and never miss a beat. But things like the Hafner deal can – as I believe we seeing now and will see more in the future – cripple our ability to compete.
But this is who we are: a mid to small market team operating in a economically depressed region with a long history of failure. The fans are not interested in “rebuilding” or “economic imbalance”. What they are interested in – and will buy tickets to see – is a winning, competitive baseball team. So far, this year and last, Shapiro’s given them neither and it’s gonna cost Wedge his job and just maybe Shapiro’s too. It ain’t fair, but it is realistic.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
Chuck just ask who has 2 of the 10 worst payroll deals this year Wood and Hafner in the top 10.
Fan in Texas
Hafner isn’t top 10 material either. Top of my head: Micheal Young, Carlos Lee, Alex Rios, Vernon Wells, Vincente Padilla, Barry Zito, Juan Pierre, Rafael Furcal, Gary Mathews Jr., Francisco Cordero, and Nick Punto.
Hafner has better numbers than all of those guys (Cordero excepted) and is making either just a bit more or less than most of them. Only a couple of them are on teams that can really afford to waste massive money. That’s just what I can remember too, I’m sure scrolling through Cot’s would turn up even more.
That said, Hafner’s contract looks a lot worse if the Indians don’t compete the next two years. But, right now, with him hitting fairly well and this team having a chance in 2010 and 2011, I don’t think it is that bad. That, of course, is a huge caveat.
I’d give Rios the benefit of the doubt over Hafner since he provides above average defensive value and will be manning CF for the White Sox. I still think it was the right move for the Blue Jays to dump him.
We could count the Bobby Bonilla and Mike Hampton contracts which will be paying both players for years into the future
My point Roger is that the Indians – our Cleveland Indians of the limited resources – can’t afford to have any questionably valued contracts. None – nada – oogatz.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
Don’t disagree. We have the ability to win it all with Hafner’s contract, but we need to get the pitching correct almost 100% of the time.
My statement that the Jays should have dumped Rios’s contract indicates that I agree with you about middle and small market teams having payroll flexiblity
So you think Hafner’s gonna get >500 ABs next year? Myself, I have no idea, but it sure would be nice.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
I’m not sure. What I do know is that, if he does, he will be far more valuable than anyone I listed.
Not really, it’s just means that we pay more for a good return where other teams pay a lot more for less. How is that bad?
Cuz we’re gonna be limited – do to economic forces – to a payroll somewhere South of $55M next year. It’s tough to pick up fill-in players – third OFers, set-up guys, fifth starters – when ~30% of your payroll is tied up in a part-time, fragile player.
It’s OK, if you’re the Yankees or Red Sox. It’s almost fatal if you’re the A’s or Indians.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
Nobody’s saying it’s a good contract, Chuck, and nobody’s saying we can afford it. You don’t have to rehash the same tired story four times a week.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
No different than the Marte saga. You cook your hash and I’ll cook mine.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
I don’t bring up Marte, the subject comes back against my will. I would almost rather he hadn’t had his great season in the minors.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
If we going to reheat hash, I’d rather have Jay’s, which at least has the potential to be a surprisingly satisfying side dish, than Chuck’s, which just tastes like rotten meat flavored with pessimistic “realism”.
Hash is hash. The common thread is both are cautionary tales. The Indians hafta get better at nurturing their young players and more prudent in who they give big money to.
In the end both stories are pretty pessimistic, Marte’s never gonna be as good as Blake and we’ll never get our money’s worth outta Hafner. Ce la vie.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
Marte is definitely the red-meat issue for LGT, maybe because everybody wants to believe there’s a happy ending if only they would listen. Nobody wants to admit Pronk is pretty much gone—or will exist in only a limited fashion—so the Hafner contract is a downer subject.
I think Marte is more relevant and more interesting because the Marte story is not over; the issue, while at this point laborious in its repetition, still exists. Marte still needs Wedge to just put him on the field and there’s still a discussion, albeit an irritating one, of what exactly Wedge thinks he’s doing.
Hafner’s contract, on the other hand, is over, done, written. There is nothing to say. Who is standing around arguing for Hafner’s contract?
Who is standing around arguing for Hafner’s contract?
I was going to be cute and say Hafner, but, upon reflection, he probably wouldn’t argue for it either.
by NickFantana on Aug 16, 2009 11:25 AM EDT up reply actions
Actually I’m surprised that the Hafner contract hasn’t driven us to look at contracts in general in a different light. We – mostly Jay – have analyzed Pronk’s signing relative to the “open market” which, of course, includes the NYs and Bostons of the league. I was thinking that we should “normalize” this analysis by looking at signings in terms of % of a club’s break even number. So that $15M per year would look like ~$15m/$80m for the Indians or ~19% and $15m/$200m or ~8% for the Yankees. It would give you a better idea of the relative risk for each club. At some percentage the relative risk is too great for any club.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
That is a fair critique. I will tell you now, and I would have told you then, that what that analysis was about was whether Hafner had given the club a good deal (clearly he did, by leaving tens of millions on the table relative to the market), and whether Shapiro had gotten the club a bargain relative to the market (again, clearly he did).
Your point is something separate from that. There is a fairly broad consensus that the Indians could not bid for Sabathia at the 150M level, and many would say at the 100M level. (He actually got 161M of course.) Your point is that we (the club and LGTers generally) don’t go far enough in limiting risk, that we can’t afford to give any player 57M either. I will tell you that signing a DH is no more risky or low-yield than signing a starter, so to that extent, I might agree with you.
The question does come back to, what else were we going to do with this money? No doubt money is now an issue for the club, but I would argue that (a) we have hit something of a perfect-storm scenario in that regard, and (b) even though money is an issue, on a fundamental level, we ran out of talent before we ran out of money.
That is, even with very little yield from 35M devoted to Hafner, Westbrook and Wood, that is not really what has sunk us for 2009 and 2010. What sunk us was that we didn’t have good enough talent for the other 22 spots. Those three players have been huge ROI disappointments so far, but they’re not more than 10 wins combined off reasonable mean projections. We are a lot more than 10 wins away from being a contending team.
One more point I would make is that the Yankees are not in on most free agents, and their indirect impact on other salaries is significant but not nearly as profound. Case in point, C.C. gets his 161M. If, this fall, another player were on the market who was equivalent to C.C. in productivity, risk, etc., if the Yankees don’t bid on him, he will not get close to 161M. He likely will get more like 120M.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
This comment would have been monstrous at the previous indent level.
by Logodaedalus on Aug 16, 2009 5:56 PM EDT up reply actions
That’s a pretty big leap of faith. Kinda like worryin’ about Marte’s arb years. The way he’s goin’ he’ll be playin’ for free in 2012.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
no one jokes about how real santana is.
by I'd give my legs for Wegz on Aug 14, 2009 5:22 PM EDT up reply actions
It’s beyond tired to beat on the “win” stat, but CC’s entry is pretty funny. The whole entry is about discussing each of his 3 Columbus starts individually (bad, a little less bad, great), and yet they still can’t resist adding at the end: “Carrasco is now 3-0 since joining the Columbus rotation.”
I thought about this reading Lastoria the other day, and I meant to give him a hard time about it. It is kind of like an AP Style Guide convention, that you have to mention the win-loss record and ERA every time you talk about a pitcher. I would like to say both to B.A. and to Tony, hey, we’re all intelligent adults here, what say we start treating our readers like intelligent adults?
I would imagine that one of the secret pleasures of reading the Annual was that there was none of this de rigeur mentioning of batting average, win-loss record, etc. You probably didn’t even notice it was missing until you went back and read something else.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
And still the most annoying part is how the media works into conversations with the pitchers themselves: “Hey, Cliff, how happy are you that the bullpen was able to preserve that win for you?” Castro is particularly bad about this.
I don’t know if I’m totally with you there. While we see wins as irrelevant to future success, the competitors themselves still care deeply about the W as a very relevant measure of current success.
Stuart Dean
If I were a player and got asked questions like this (e.g. “How happy are you that…”, “how important is …”, etc.), I’d just answer with numbers.
Reporter: “Hey, Colin, how excited were you that Jamey Carroll was able to make that diving stop in the 8th inning to preserve the no-hitter?”
Me: “Oh, about 26-and-a-half. I’d say definitely between 26 and 27 excited.”
by Logodaedalus on Aug 14, 2009 6:17 PM EDT up reply actions 3 recs
I actually think minor league win totals, at least for starting pitchers, have some, albeit limited, value. Basically, a minor league starter can’t get a lot of wins (>14) unless they go deep into a lot of games. If a pitcher has been able to rack up 15 victories, they’ve had to stay healthy and effective enough to see a lot of 6th and 7th innings. It’s obviously a crappy stat if you want to say how “good” someone is, but if a guy has earned 15 wins in 26 starts (about a full minor league season), chances are the guy is at least interesting on the Jason Stanford/Brian Slocum level.
I think [his trouble pitching out of jams] is something he will in time learn to manage. It is something he was able to power through with his stuff alone at the lower levels, and now he is realizing the importance of adjustments within innings and in at bats.
Interesting quote by RAtkins during Lastoria interview in light of Carrasco’s perceived “big-inning” achilled heel
Stuart Dean
I have, by the way, no idea what this cartoon is trying to say.
by Logodaedalus on Aug 14, 2009 6:19 PM EDT up reply actions
you’re saying they drew it in advance, anticipating that someone would make that typo at some point?
by Logodaedalus on Aug 14, 2009 6:25 PM EDT up reply actions 3 recs
Yeah. I meant I had no idea what the original cartoonist was trying to do.
by Logodaedalus on Aug 14, 2009 6:25 PM EDT up reply actions
Yep, totally see where you’re coming from here. For example:
Scott Feldman (12-4) worked out of trouble several times after allowing a first-inning run in winning his third straight start. The right-hander gave up one run in six innings and struck out six to improve to 8-1 with a 3.33 ERA in 10 road starts this season.
This is Victor's home. Victor Jose, you too.
Santana’s season is now basically indistinguishable from Victor’s 2002, although he’s doing it with less average and more power. Neutral OPS is an insane 1026. No doubt some clevesters will complain that he’s not a 300 hitter like Vic was.
Rondon is so young, I find it genuinely confusing. As in, at 21, it doesn’t compute that he’s in AAA, and given that he’s in AAA, it doesn’t compute that he’s 21. Not unlike the Chiz in that respect. I wonder if we’re not getting excited enough about these prospects. We had great prospects in 2002, but they weren’t shockingly young like this. I’m not saying the Chiz is going to be an impact player like Grady, but having said that, they are on very similar career paths. The Chiz went to junior college basically in lieu of Low-A ball, but both guys made it to Double-A at age 21.
As for Carrasco — whom we should call C.C. just to confuse outsiders — maybe he just wasn’t in the right uniform before.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
Yes to all of this, and I am committed to taking back the CC nickname.
I think the reason you might see an overall low level of excitement is the people feel burnt by Marte, and perhaps now Huff, not to mention overhyped guys like Sowers and Crowe. Sure we have Cabrera and Choo, but we didn’t watch those guys come up.
Huff only really got hyped by Paul, Adam and me, I think, so I doubt anyone is really that disapointed after just a couple months.
How soon we forget Victor and Grady.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
Me too, but of course I would have liked to have seen the transition go a little more smoothly.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
Carrasco, I think, just kind of a victim of top-ten list syndrome. If he’s not top-whatever, if his whatever-ball isn’t on the best tools list, that doesn’t mean he’s without value, it just means he’s without coverage.
You kind of have to pan all the way out to see the deal for what it is. If somebody handed you Carrasco’s career stat sheet with the name blacked out, you’d say, yeah, I’ll take that guy. Then somebody tells you he’s Carlos Carrasco, which means he’s not Whatsisface Drabek or whoever. The correct response is still, yeah, I’ll take that guy — did you see the stat sheet?
by fleerdon on Aug 14, 2009 7:50 PM EDT up reply actions
I think it will be awhile before we are able to fully grasp the sheer volume of pitching we’ve picked up over the past month. Masterson, Carrasco, Perez, Todd, Price, Hagadone, Knapp, Graham….did I miss any? That is a lot of pitching talent to add to the mix that already contained Rondon, Gomez, Perez, De La Cruz, Mahalic, Putnam, House…
I wish we had a prototypical corner OFer, but I’ll take my chances with LaPorta, Weglarz and Brantley.
Every time I try to do a mental rundown of the pitching prospects, I always forget someone. That has to be a good thing.
I am 100% on board with taking back the CC nickname for Carrasco, and I was probably the biggest CC Sabathia fan in the world. Hell, I still root for Sabathia, even in pinstripes. But — CC can only be an Indian.
Agreed for Rondon but Chisenhall isn’t absurdly young for Double AA. I basically look at him as a 21 year older in AA because that’s where he will start next year and will probably stay for most of the season. Rondon, on the other hand, has a chance to break camp with the club.
But 21 is very young in Double-A. Perhaps not absurdly young, but very young. Most Double-A players are 23-24, and most of the real prospects are 22-23. Think about all the college juniors who excel in Advanced-A at age 22, then they struggle at 23 in Double-A. The Chiz is two years younger than the typical college draftee, and he may not struggle at all.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
I always looked at the standard very good prospect projection to be 19 in Low-A, 20 in High-A, 21 in Double-A, and then 22 in Triple-A. Studs like Grady, Hanley, Felix, Fernando Martinez, tend to break this mold though with their awesomeness. Maybe I’ve just been spoiled with the quality of prospects in the league lately.
Those represent a reasonable threshold of awesomeness, i.e., those who are at those age/levels are awesome.
My PTM system is more forgiving at the upper levels, but it purports to identify prospects who are significant — who “matter” to the major league club — based on performance alone. It goes 19, 21, 23, 25, though I am thinking about raising the age standard at the upper levels.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
i promise not to turn this into a sex joke.
by Brick. on Aug 14, 2009 6:14 PM EDT up reply actions 3 recs
Adam’s answer refers to the Progress score metric, which is largely based on the PTM approach to the subject.
I generally did not credit catchers with being a year younger, as it were, but my expectations for a catcher’s hitting performance at any given level is a lot lower than it would be for a first baseman or even a center fielder. That is, I might consider a catcher a “success” at a given age/level based on a 750 OPS, but I wouldn’t call that a success for a first baseman by a far stretch.
For the PTM lists, I used age/level as a first cutoff, and then I looked at offensive performance relative to position among those who had made that cutoff. Progress Score, however, considers all factors simultaneously, rather than having sequential cutoff criteria, and it attempts to assign a rough production equivalence to age/level and positional values. Essentially, each level is set equivalent to 120 points of OPS (park/luck-neutralized), and the difference in positional value between a Beau Mills and a Carlos Santana is set to 240 points, with multiple levels in between those two extremes of course.
I don’t think the present formulas are as good as they could be, but for a first try, they’re pretty good.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
Interesting stuff. I suppose it would make sense to make it more forgiving at the upper-levels. They do say the biggest jump is from High-A to Double-A, yes?
Who knows what they say at any given time, and who are “they” anyway?
To be honest, the two-year spreads are not entirely about prospect quality, but also about significance to the big-league club as impacted by the prospect’s proximity to the club and the immediacy of his hypothetical arrival. For pure prospect quality, your one-year spread across the levels may be closer to the truth, but I’m deliberately penalizing the lower levels and rewarding Triple-A success, because no matter how high their ceilings, Carrasco is a lot more valuable to the present-day club than Knapp.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
Similar to a an option or risk adjusted spread.
While Knapp may be the stronger underlying asset, you have to discount his value as a function of the higher amount of chronlogical and competition distance that he would have to travel relative to a Carrrasco in order to realize your return.
Stuart Dean
With pitchers, I probably am not taking the concept far enough, considering how severe the attrition rates are for pitching prospects, and especially those under 23, and especially as we don’t care too much about those over 23.
Consider the only four pitchers to make the PTM ranking from the low minors: Miller, Lofgren, Gomez and Rondon. Miller dominated Double-A at 21, Lofgren thrived in Advanced-A at 20 and Gomez did Low-A at 19. That meets not only the PTM standard but your standard, yet it’s by no means clear that any of them will ever make any contribution at the major league level. Only Rondon now seems like a lock, and hey, maybe he only seems like one.
I think the present adjustment really is only enough to account for the time value of each asset, i.e., that the player will arrive to assist the 2014 club rather than the 2010 club. Prospect analysts tend not to even consider pure time value as separate from risk, but any serious valuation of each player as an asset would have to factor that in quite heavily.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
yet it’s by no means clear that any of them will ever make any contribution at the major league level
And if none of them do, then they were bad draft picks/signings. Nice work Mark.
by dgcambridge on Aug 14, 2009 6:49 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
/cough, cough, secret 10-year rebuild project all along, cough
In all seriousness, the mountain of fury that erupted when the Indians took Chisenhall was what clued me in to the idea that draft observers — not just the apoplectic amateurs, but the professionals — have a flawed methodology, born perhaps out of a need to say intelligent-sounding things about teenagers. So you’re X or you’re Y or you’re a “tweener.” Well, shoot, man, if Lonnie’s a tweener, I’ll take a dozen more just like him. Part of me really believes he’s not being hyped because people just don’t want to eat crow.
Lonnie’s age-20 season in Kinston was not too dissimilar from Wegz’s, except Lonnie had his at third base.
by fleerdon on Aug 14, 2009 7:44 PM EDT up reply actions
Wedge would love a team full of tweeners. Annually, each guy could play 20 games at each position on the diamond. And our defense would suck 85% of the time.
This is Victor's home. Victor Jose, you too.
by westbrook on Aug 15, 2009 2:03 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
and as mentioned before, CarlosC’s 2nd outing when he gave up 5 runs…well he gave up 1 run on 2 hits thru 7, and then lost it in the 8th. You don’t send him out there for the 8th, and we have 15 IP, 1.2 era, 6 h, 2 r, 1bb, 15 k.
I think the kid can pitch.
I’ve heard this argument before, but there was no reason to take him out after 7 IP. He’d retired 12 of the last 13 (the only exception being a walk), and had only thrown 82 pitches. He pitched seven good innings before he fell apart, but there’s no reason to pull him.
That was not my point. I did not see the game and have no opinion whether he should have been out there in the 8th. All I wanted to say was that the final numbers skew a solid performance.
And my point is that “performance” includes every pitch. Of course, figuring how not to fall apart at the end is probably a lot easier than figuring out how not to suck at the beginning.
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