If you wanted your old jalopy to look and run like new, would you swap out the engine for a '75 Malibu's? Would you attach the rusted doors from a '92 Nova? Even if you could get them cheap?
The rebuilding Braves, they of the 68-93 record, have inked deals with two-thirds of a nursing home. 40+ hurlers Bartolo Colon and R.A. Dickey were just the beginning. Atlanta has since picked up 30-year-old Jaime Garcia, 36-year-old Brandon Phillips, 33-year-old Kurt Suzuki and 32-year-old Sean Rodriguez.
It's not like these players were found in the bargain bin. Phillips and Garcia will cost $26 million between them. Dickey's knuckler and Colon's many folds chew up another $20 million. Rodriguez signed a two-year, $11.5 million contract. It's a parade of post-prime players on the books for a team clawing back from the abyss.
And that's added to a last place team already starting two MLB graybeards, Nick Markakis, 33 and Matt Kemp, 32.
Are They Any Better?
None of these players is currently a star, though Colon was a Cy Young candidate back when rookie phenom Dansby Swanson was in diapers and Matt Kemp came within a Ryan Braun drug test of earning an MVP back in the Bush Administration. All of them together aren't propelling the Braves into contention. So what does it mean?
It means Atlanta's brass knows Atlanta's kids aren't ready, particularly on the mound. Rather than rush the prospects to the Majors, the team is bringing in elderly placeholders on one-year deals. If any of them takes his Geritol and lights it up in the first half, GM John Copolella will flip them at the trade deadline for more young assets.
“We’re looking for guys who can suck up innings," he told the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Beyond that, Copolella recognizes that it's a bad look, particularly as they open Sun Trust Park, if the Braves suck. There might actually be some value to not finishing last in the NL East. So if they want to catch an ascendant Philadelphia team, they'd better get some quality on the field. Middling 29-year-olds aren't generally settling for one-year deals, so they recruited the guys they could.
It's an innovative strategy that might catch on among rebuilding clubs that calculate they are still a couple of years away.
So Year One in the new digs in Marietta won't involve a pennant chase. It won't even involve a .500 chase, most likely. But it increases the odds that a contender gets to Sun Trust Park before its novelty wears off.
Miracle on 161st Street
More on this in a full post, but if Joe Girardi isn't AL manager of the year then I'm Barry Manilow. He's taken an ever-changing replacement-player roster to contention and done it without a hint of rancor or complaint. He's incorporated the Alex Rodriguez Traveling Circus into the family with beneficial results. And he's had to have The Talk with a parade of .196 hitters whose 15 minutes in pinstripes has ended.
All that and his ace has gone half-joker. If this team were challenging Toronto for the cellar, no one would blame them.
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Dodgers Make A Splash
Did I miss the memo on pool parties? Is that another unwritten rule that you're just supposed to intuit? Man, I can't keep track. I always thought that celebrating in a pool was a great idea.
What's the unwritten rule on calling opponents classless? Someone ask Willie Bloomquist. What's the unwritten rule on politicians who can't get anything done in Washington commenting on the baseball team celebrations? I think "shut up" is the rule, John McCain, but I don't know because it's unwritten.
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Star Bucs
A yearlong fear: The Pirates have a spectacular season but run out of steam -- as young, inexperienced teams often do -- in the last 10 or 20 games. They fall into the Wild Card and lose the one-game play-in. Six months of developing goodwill disappears in nine innings. It feels like another "Wait 'til Next Year" scenario in Pittsburgh.
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Yasiel Who?
More on the MVP races in a full post, but consider this couldabeen: In exactly half a season of work, Hanley Ramirez is hitting .351/.403/.656 with 20 homers and 10 steals from the shortstop position. He's playing some of the best defense of his career and has been worth 5.6 wins for the Dodgers. In half a season.
The last player to post 11.2+ wins against replacement without taking drugs*? Pedro Martinez 13 years ago. The last everyday player? Yaz in '67.
*As far as we know.
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New Joba Rules
At $2 or $3 million in his last year of arbitration, it's hard to see Joba Chamberlain sticking with the Yankees in 2014. He's regressed as a pitcher, walking 5.4 per nine innings and contributing replacement value the last two years. His home run rate has risen each year but one to an unsustainable 1.7 per nine innings. At this point he's little more than a middle-inning mop-up guy. For the suddenly cost-conscious Yankees, that may not play.
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#Quitchacussing
Issues Brandon Phillips shouldn't comment on publicly: chemical weapons in Syria, Russia's crackdown on gays, possible implications of the Affordable Care Act, his .310 on-base percentage. You want to shut up the Enquirer writer, Brandon? Get on base more.
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Cashnering In
After closing at TCU and 93 MLB games as a reliever, Andrew Cashner may be emerging as a rotation ace this season. At 10-8, 3.21 for the Padres, the bearded one has hurled five straight games of at least seven frames relinquishing two earned runs or fewer. Scouts believed Cashner had the best stuff of college pitchers in the 2008 draft.
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Flipping the Script
The Red Sox are just the fourth team all-time to win 93+ games the year after losing 93+ games. With two more victories, the Indians will become the fifth.
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Playoff Odd
In yesterday's post, these were the quoted AL playoff odds from Baseball Prospectus:
Tampa Bay 70%
Texas 67%
Cleveland 49%
Baltimore 9%
KC 4%
New York 1%
Just to give you an idea how fluid these ratings are, consider them one game later:
Tampa Bay 78%
Cleveland 60%Texas 50%
KC 6%
Baltimore 4%
New York 2%
It does call into question how a team can plummet from highly likely to a toss-up after one loss, as the Rangers supposedly did. These playoff odds remind me a bit of five-day weather forecasts. Follow the fifth day forecast over the week and you'll see it change daily before ultimately missing the mark.
He's a leadoff hitter with a .417 OBP (second in the NL) and plenty of pop too -- 14 homers and 26 doubles/triples. His OPS of .883 is 40% better than average and 10th best in the league. He gets on base even more often -- half the time -- in high leverage situations, like late in close games.
He's worth four wins to his team at the plate, fifth in the league, and staffs the critical center field position. Not surprisingly, he's third in the league in runs scored, thanks also to a great number three hitter and good cleanup guy.
He's no flash-in-the-pan either: during his nine year career, he's hit .289/.387/.465, 33% above average.
And yet, he wasn't even seriously considered for the All-Star team and isn't on anyone's MVP preview list. You probably don't know anything about him. Shin-soo Choo may be the most under-rated player in Major League Baseball.
It may be that the low-key Korean native has suffered an identity crisis from playing in Cleveland and Cincinnati, two Ohio cities with small Korean populations. It could be that his skills don't light up the BA-HR-RBI stat meter that uneducated baseball fans still use. It could be that teammates like superstar Joey Votto and flashy Brandon Phillips have overshadowed him.
Whatever the reason, Choo would have to be on your short list of MVP candidates so far, along with Votto, David Wright, Buster Posey, Carlos Gonzalez, Andrew McCutcheon, Matt Carpenter, Yadier Molina and Carlos Gomez.
It's worth noting that nowhere near that list is Phillips, the walking highlight reel powered by joie de vivre and accompanied by a decent stick. But the suggestion by an MLB-employed "analyst" (who shall remain nameless to spare him further embarrassment) that Phillips is the NL MVP so far because of his league-leading RBI total is so utterly out-of-touch that he should be relieved of duties based on that one statement alone. (Ironically, the offending analyst was a reliever when he played ball.)
Phillips led the league in RBIs -- he doesn't anymore -- because Choo and Votto occupy the basepaths before him. Phillips himself is hitting just .261/.313/.403, which, though highly respectable for a second baseman, is below average overall. Not only does he enjoy the most RBI opportunities in the league by a wide margin, he also benefits disproportionately from runners in scoring position. Phillips is a laudable sixth in the league in converting those opportunities, but that's hardly MVP material. He's been worth about a win-and-a-half to the Reds, small potatoes compared to Choo.
It's tempting determine player value by this method:
1. Find an everyday performer on a good team with a high batting average and big home run totals
2. Season with steals and fielding
3. Factor in his position.
That would make us feel like we'd covered the bases. You're likely to find a good player that way, but our tools are so much more refined and thoughtful, and easily available. They help us determine that a quiet guy like Shin-soo Choo is far more valuable than his tweeting, fun-king teammate, Brandon Phillips.
Alburquerque Now In Toledo
After uncorking 13 walks and six wild pitches in 14 innings, Tiger reliever Al Albuquerque has been optioned to the Triple-A club in central Ohio.
Can't wait for Houston Street to get traded to the Astros.
Brandon Phillips Leads League in RBI
After 40 games, Brandon Phillips leads the NL in RBIs with 36. Has he got some RBI magic or is he swimming in opportunities?
Yes.
Overall, Phillips is hitting just .286 with seven home runs. But he's delivering at a .450 clip with runners in scoring position.
Which is often. Phillips hits fourth in the Reds' lineup behind Shin-soo Choo (.452 OBP) and Joey Votto (.462 OBP).
Phillips is unlikely to renew his clutch-hitting subscription. But his opportunities club card is good for the entire season as long as Choo and Votto remain in the lineup. Barring injury, "Dat Dude" should tally his first 100-RBI season. And then he should take Choo and Votto out to dinner.
Ah, Choo
Speaking of Choo, he's lucky to be playing in this era. The 30-year-old right fielder is exactly the kind of heads-up five-tool player whose body of work was largely invisible in the pre-sabermetric days.
Since he began playing regularly for the Indians in 2008, Choo has averaged .293 with 18 homers and 73 RBI. But today we know that only scratches the surface.
Shin-soo Choo is an on-base machine who has lots of gap power. His .293/.389/.477 performance with an average of 17 steals at a 77% success rate makes him worth 34% more than the average hitter over that five-plus years. He's been worth 23 wins against replacement with the bat during that time, about four-and-a-half per year. That's perennial all-star territory.
By way of comparison, Ryan Howard's best five consecutive years with the stick were worth 18.3 wins, despite pounding 229 homers and bringing home 680 runs. Not to pick on Howard: Joe Carter's best six years added the same number of wins as Howard's five. His 180 homers, 652 RBI and 142 SB belied a .311 OBP. Carter got Hall of Fame votes.
Ten years ago, players like Shin-soo Choo were dismissed as complimentary parts and denied credit for the RBIs accumulated by the batters behind them. Today, we recognize all of Choo's attributes and more fully appreciate him. And when the baseball writers catch up to the rest of us, they'll finally elect Tim Raines to the Hall of Fame.
Bud No Weiser
During baseball games, Budweiser is proudly advertising their new "bowtie" shaped can. They are officially out of ideas.
All Or Nothing In Cincinnati Lineup
Cincinnati has struggled to score runs on occasion this year despite Votto, Choo, Phillips and Jay Bruce. If you're wondering why, here's the rest of the lineup and their OPS (an average starter has about a .750 OPS):
Todd Frazier, .693
Zack Cozrt, .573
Devin Mesoraco, .660
Xavier Paul, .792
And the first two guys off the bench, Chris Heisey and Ryan Hannigan, have OPS in the 400s.
With the starting core and first rate pitching to start and finish games, the Reds are a playoff threat. Another bat could really help.
Fact of the Day
Fox Sports mentioned this on their national broadcast: In 14 years as a Major Leaguer, 10 as a fulltime starter, Bronson Arroyo has never missed a start.
A quintessentially average pitcher throughout his career, (lifetime 104 ERA+) Arroyo's durability and innings consumption have tremendous value to his team. At $11.5 million, his salary is right in the ballpark.
