Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 196: The New Scott Kazmir/The Future of the Angels

Episode Date: May 6, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss Scott Kazmir’s win over the weekend, then talk about the Angels’ outlook for the rest of this season and beyond.

The rain is very loud. There's nothing I can do about that. Good morning and welcome to episode 196 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectus. I am Ben Lindberg and in rainy Long Beach, California, as you can probably hear, is Sam Miller. Hello, Sam. Hi, Ben.

What's your topic? Scott Casimir. Okay. I thought we could talk about the Angels a little bit, which is always good because I know that you'll handle the bulk of it because you're an Angels fan. It's interesting because I just wrote about Scott Casimir before tomorrow, and I almost wrote about the Angels instead, but I thought I would do that later this week. Okay. But I didn't have anything to say yet, so we'll see if I do.

Okay. You can use this as a proving ground for your article. Yeah, everybody can hear me stumble along through a rough draft. All right. who goes first? I'll start just because there's not much to say about Scott Casimir. But Casimir pitched this weekend. He got the win. He struck out seven and walked one, which qualifies it as a pretty good start. And that was just unthinkable to me a couple years ago because I watched him completely break down,

first in the majors and then in the minors and then in the Dominican League, and then disappear and go work on a television show as like an assistant producer or something like that. And it really seemed like he was done, that he didn't really have all that much. I mean, I didn't know this. I didn't talk to him or anything.

But based on what he was doing in his life, it seemed like he would have been perfectly happy leaving all that failure behind. And so it's sort of shocking and fairly admirable that he did the long road back, and he's back. So I watched his start. And to be honest, it's not that impressive. There's no, like, I don't know. It's not like you look at him and say, wow, he's back. He's one fix away from being an all-star again. I don't think there's all that much that's exciting about him,

but he is now, I think, a completely credible starting pitcher, which I didn't really expect in spring training when he came to camp. But he hit 95, which is a lot. Yes, that is very impressive. If you're a lefty and you're throwing 95 then you have jobs for many years uh and he um he hit 94 i think five or six times and uh he probably sat 92 to 93 with his four seamer and there's some things that are a little different about him um for instance he has uh he has gone back to throwing a two-seamer, which he had scrapped, and he really only threw for one year in his career.

He has developed a slow curveball that he never threw before, and he rarely throws now, but he does have it. And he has some more trust in his slider, and he's gone back a little bit to his old mechanics. But basically he's the same old Scott Casimir, who's going to be a bit maddening at times, has trouble locating pitches, has good enough stuff to get away with some of them, but not good enough stuff to dominate without some location. And he basically looks like every team's fifth starter right now, which is amazing

because every team's fifth starter usually makes like $3 or $4 million. It just didn't occur to me a few years ago that Scott Kazmaier would ever be worth $3 or $4 million. Yeah, you wrote that article about who would have more wins from that point. It was Kazmaier, Pryor, and Moyer, I think. Yes. I don't remember. What did you conclude? I concluded that Moyer was the most likely.

This was just before last season started. Moyer was the favorite, and I actually picked Pryor over Kazmir. While acknowledging that the Dontrell Willis precedent, and to a lesser degree, actually, the Pryor precedent, basically guaranteed that Kazmir would get lots of chances if he wanted them. But there didn't look like there was all that much will on his part. And even if he got lots of chances, it didn't really look like he was going to be able to make the most of them to get back into a big league rotation. His last start in the big leagues before this year, he averaged 86 with his fastball.

And he has basically always kind of been Zito Wild, but with great stuff. And this stuff was completely gone. So it was interesting because I read an interview that David Lorela? Yeah. Is that you would put the stress on the lore yes okay so david laurel did on an interview with him in 2010 which was um just after he'd been traded to the angels he had had uh sort of his first bad year the year before um but there was enough positive in it that that you didn't think that it was necessarily going to be a bad, you know,

that he had a bad future going forward. I mean, the Angels gave up legit stuff for him at the trade deadline. And he looked like, you know, a guy who was locked up for three years and could be a pretty decent by low candidate. He came to the Angels, was really good for him down the stretch. His velocity had dropped early in the season and then come back, which suggested that he was hurt. And when he went on the DL, he kind of got the velocity back. So he did this interview with David and he talks a lot about his style of pitching and what he's going to do going forward. And it's sort of interesting to read in retrospect because a lot of the things he's describing were, I don't know, they sort of felt like honest spins on his declining stuff. He was still at that point coming to grips with the fact that he didn't have his stuff.

David asked him if location is less important for a guy like him with great stuff. Location is less important for a guy like him with great stuff. And at the time, we didn't really know it, but Kazmir's stuff had basically disintegrated. There were hints at the time, and within a couple weeks, we would know that he talked about apply more kind of in retrospect than they do now. I mean, than they did at the time. Because now we know what Casimir was talking about. We know that his slider was undergoing some changes. He claimed that he had kind of solved his mechanics. And we know now that he was actually kind of at the beginning of that spiral of madness that sometimes comes when you completely lose your mechanics. And it would take

years before he would get his mechanics. And he talked about how he was healthy again. And we know now that he wasn't healthy again at all, although he might be now. So I don't know. You know, pitchers, it'd be interesting to, well, I don't know. I don't know how you look at this narratively. But when you think about a pitcher from the age of 20 to the age of 40, it's not like one reinvention, which is sometimes how – like a guy like Frank Tanana or Tommy John, they'll talk about how he had to reinvent himself because he lost. It's not one reinvention. Oftentimes, it's like seven reinventions. And so, Kazmir was in the middle of one and it took a couple of more before

he got back to where he is now. I mean, he's clearly the leader in the Moyer prior Kazmir sweet sakes right now. I mean, it's not even close. He's probably going to end up with somewhere between like four and 11 wins going forward. So clearly you would bet on him. But, I mean, RJ also wrote about him, and neither one of us thinks he's great. I think we're both sort of declaring him a number four starter, and I look at that as a more optimistic thing, and RJ looks at it as a sort of sad, depressing thing. I could see him also being a reliever, although he hasn't relieved a lot. I was going to say that it's surprising to me that none of the reinventions

that he's undergone so far has been that one. I mean, he hasn't, he's never come out of the bullpen in a game in the minors, and the only one time he did it in the majors was his rookie season. And it surprises me that, that at no point when he was just kind of a complete mess and, and a lefty who, I mean, you'd think that at some point some team would try him in the bullpen as, as, I mean, they tried that with Dontrell. He didn't really go for it, but that seems to be kind of a natural step when someone looks as lost as, as he did. Yeah, it does. And I don't know if it's that he didn't want to do, he didn't want to go there

yet. Maybe, maybe that's not the career he wants to have, uh, or, um, uh, Well, I don't know. I don't know why he didn't do it. But I mean, I guess it was probably maybe the right move to not do it yet. You want to do it. Well, I guess it depends what your philosophy is. You either want to do it as late as possible because you're still hoping he can pan out. But on the other hand, who knows? Maybe he would have been a dominant reliever or at least a valuable one and he just wasted three years of possible productivity in his career. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me at all if – all of the press is only 31. So it wouldn't totally surprise me if this doesn't work perfectly or if he has any durability issues or if it just doesn't work and I'm not at all convinced it will work.

In fact, I'm probably more convinced that it won't work. It wouldn't surprise me if within a year or two he's a reliever. I would think it's probably easier for him to do the transition now that he's in the majors because he kind of has that self-image again of having worked his way back. I don't know if he would have, it seems like it would have been harder to go to independent ball and learn, learn to be a reliever there. And cause then you'd just be thinking, I mean, really, what am I doing? Well, yeah. I mean, once you go to the bullpen, you're kind of on your last legs. I mean,

there's no, there's nowhere to go from there really. Uh, so really. So now, even if he struggles as a starter, there's still one last cure that they can try with him. So there's somewhere for him to go from there. He's a lefty who throws 95 while starting, so he's going to get help. I guarantee you he throws at least one game of relief before it's all done. Yeah, definitely.

All right, Angels. So the Angels lost on Sunday. They dropped three out of four to the Orioles, and they now go to play the Astros, which is, I guess, the only team with a worse record than they have in the American League. Actually, I guess the Blue Jays have lost one more game than the Angels have, so technically they are worse also. But, I mean, the Angels are really interesting

because the BP staff, including you and I, picked them as the winners of the AL West this year. And we did a podcast, and I don't remember what the topic was exactly, but we talked about how the Angels were just kind of locked in to their current roster, like they had less flexibility than maybe any other team. Right. I think every starting position player that they have

has been assigned to an extension now for multiple years. Right. Or else is like at a trout slash trumbo level of pre-arbitration. Yeah. And of course, they have maybe the worst farm system in baseball. It was ranked the worst by Jason Parks this year. No first round pick this year. Yeah.

Again. So, I mean again for better or worse they are kind of who they are it seems that they are stuck being who they are for the foreseeable future I guess when we talked about it last time I don't know that we thought it was for worse really, I don't remember what spin we put on it

but after their start this season I'm interested in what you think will happen for the rest of this season, but I'm also interested in, you know, I mean, if, if, if you've even heard of them, which half the time I haven't, is, I mean, it's kind of hard to be as optimistic as I was about them six weeks ago, just kind of seeing what their roster looks like right now and seeing what some of their core players have looked like to this point. Albert Pujols didn't play in that Sunday game. He was resting his foot. You've been doing a series at BP on just Albert Pujols playing through pain and how painful it is for us to watch him. And so I don't know, what is your

thought on whether they can salvage this season? And if not, if you find this to be a very bad sign and maybe pool holes in Hamilton will never be what they were again, then what do they do or can they do anything or do they just kind of have to stick with this roster and just go down with the ship if it goes down and just hope it doesn't? I mean, is there any sort of remedy to this or is it just kind of hope things get better? Well, first I should note that I have no credibility on this.

I mean, I've been beating the Angels drum for the last year and a half. And, you know, I think I said at the end of last year that I thought that they still might be the best team in the American League, even though they missed the playoffs. And I think I said as much before the start of this season. So I, you know, at a certain point, you know, people should stop asking me. But we've actually had a couple of questions about this for the email show over the last couple of weeks. And I don't think we've answered it either time. But it was basically if the angels are sellers at the trade deadline, who's movable?

And part of the problem is that the angels have a self-image that doesn't allow that. I mean it would really have to be pretty bad. And part of the problem is that the Angels have a self-image that doesn't allow that. It would really have to be pretty bad, and sort of in the same way that it had to get really bad before the Red Sox were willing to sell, I think, at the trade deadline. And it did get to that point, and they did make the move, and I think it was probably for the best for them um the it's hard to it's it's sort of hard well i guess it's it's not hard to diagnose what's wrong with the angels uh the the reasons are fairly simple one is that you know they've had a lot of injuries and that they've also had some

um particularly their pitching staff and they've had some badly timed extra innings games and so basically what has happened is that every member of their 40-man and they've had some badly timed extra innings games. And so basically what has happened is that every member of their 40-man roster has had to pitch. And so, like you said, the names that have come up are not names. Like, I had never heard of Michael Roth, and I wrote the Angels chapter. And so, I mean, Michael Roth, I don't think, was in their top 30 prospects before the season began.

And he wasn't on their 40-man and he had something like 12 professional innings or something like that. Dane De La Rosa? Dane De La Rosa was part of the trade with the Rays. And so he's new and he's got a lively arm. He's been kind of good. The problem, I mean, so if there's one thing that I think Socha's getting a lot of criticism right now from Angels fans who revered him just a couple years ago, and if

there's one gripe with Socha that I think is fair, it's that he does get kind of attached to mediocre arms over the course of small samples and then, you know, I think he really believes in the hot hand theory and usually he gets burned. So right now Dane De La Rosa is getting worked like crazy

and Dane De La Rosa is just so-so. Anyway, Dane De La Rosa is not the problem. They've had the injuries. They've had a pitching staff that is probably been worse than expected, especially in the rotation. It wasn't expected to be good. It was expected to be fairly poor, but I think it's been even worse than that, partly because Weaver's been gone and partly because Joe Blanton and Tommy Hansen are both really bad. They were kind of reclamation projects who didn't pay off or haven't paid off yet.

And then, you know, Hamilton has been not just a disappointment, but one of the worst players in baseball, one of the 10 or so worst players in baseball. And Pujols has been not just disappointing like he was kind of disappointing last year, but he has been completely broken down and can't hardly play. So that's the problem. All of those are issues that it's still too early to say, or I guess it's from our vantage point difficult to say how real they are. They should get healthier. Weaver, I think, is supposed to be back in a couple weeks. I still think that Blanton is probably capable of eating innings at something better than a 60 RA. And Hamilton is essentially doing what he did last year. He's just doing it a lot worse. And there's not an easy explanation for that unless you just think his career is over. So I don't know. I guess that's a lot of stuff that didn't answer

your question. Your question was how do they get out of this cycle? Yeah, I guess, I mean, if you think that they will pull themselves out of it, then maybe they don't need to get out of it. Maybe it's still a good thing that they have everyone locked in. But when you looked at how much Hamilton has struggled over the last year and how, I mean, just Pujols' physical condition and the lack of prospects and draft picks, I mean, you could see it potentially getting really bad for a while. There's a story you could tell where things just get ugly.

Yeah, well, these are the easy years. I mean, all these contracts are back loaded. So I think I tweeted this a couple days ago. They wish they were backdated. Yes, I'm going to botch the numbers here. But basically, Pujols, Hamilton, Wilson, Weaver, I think are paid $60 million this year. And in like two or three years, those same four players are going to be getting $100 million. Yeah, I'm looking at the cuts page right now.

In 2016, Hamilton, Weaver, Pujols, Wilson are due like $107 million. Exactly. And so this is supposed to be the time when everything is awesome. Kendrick and Ibar and Chiaspo are all 29 this year they just signed three and four and five year extensions so these are supposed to be the good years ionetta is a catcher he's 30 he signed the extension and because it's supposed to be awesome right now like it's really lousy that they can't that they're not winning right now because they're they're supposed to be taking on the sort

of disappointment and inflexibility of the future later in exchange for having this really awesome team now and then hopefully figure it out as they go. But obviously they're not taking advantage of it right now and they probably aren't going to. I mean this year it's extremely unlikely that they're going to win at this point. This year is almost a lost season. Their playoff odds have dropped from, I don't know what they were at the beginning of the year, but something like 70% or 60% to like 20-ish.

20-ish. I think it was 20-ish before today. Yeah, it was 23 or so before today's loss. Yeah, so probably basically getting down into the teens, and you might argue that that's optimistic, but only because we're dumb and we think that computers are bad. So how do they get out of this spiral? How do they get out of this cycle? How do they win in three or four years?

Well, it's really hard to say. I mean, one advantage that they have is that they get to spend a lot more money than everybody else so the biggest downside to these contracts is that you have to spend money on non-production even if you take a couple of these contracts turn them into zero and get no value out of them whatsoever the angels still have more that they can spend and any other team in their division. They will, you know, if Albert Pujols,

you know, if he got so bad that they actually waived him and ate his contract, they would still have more money to spend than the Rangers do and a lot more money than the A's. So that's one thing that they get to do is they just get to be richer than everybody else. They, I, geez, I don't know.

Off the top of my head, it's hard for me to say what they do. The core of this team still feels to me like it's pretty good. They still have, you know, Trout, Trumbo, Borges is still a nice trio of fairly young guys. And nobody's that old, except for Albert's getting there. But gosh, I'm really struggling to say anything of value here. I wasn't expecting the solution off the top it doesn't look good i mean yeah i i would guess i mean i would not at this point uh i would not say that they have a better than 50 chance of winning the division uh before 2015 and it could get really

ugly after that. You do have Brendan Harris, though. I mean, look, they might move in three years. Their lease expires in Anaheim. They might move to LA, and they might increase their payroll to $250 million at that point. Who knows what they'll do? It's hard to say. I mean, when they signed Josh Hamilton, I did the transaction analysis of that. And the idea that I looked at in that piece was whether we can really analyze anything anymore because the disparity between small and big markets makes it almost impossible to evaluate these deals the same way for two teams. Basically, the Angels have done nothing but take on one horrible contract every year for the last five years, but every time they do it, well, who cares? There's another one coming off the books or they just raise payroll. When they traded for Vernon Wells, it was supposed to end their ability to go out and sign high-priced free

agents. The next year, they got Pujols and Wilson. Thatpriced free agents. The next year they got Pujols and Wilson, and then that was supposed to end it. And then the next year they got Josh Hamilton, and in between they traded for Zach Granke. So, I mean, it's really hard to know where the limits are for this team. I suppose that the answer for them is that they just keep spending until they're out of it. I mean, usually spending money, if you're a smart team, which they seem to be, or at least they seem to have a good front office, good GM, good people around the GM.

Usually if you spend more money, it's not a foolproof plan. It often backfires. There are poor teams that win and there are rich teams that lose. But money does correlate to success to some degree, and they should still have more of it than anybody else in the future. to some degree and they should still have more of it than anybody else in the future. I have been wondering what Pujols and Hamilton would sign for right now if they were free agents again. It's an interesting question because I mean as you said usually it takes several years for these deals to start looking like I mean like a real weight around the team's neck. And now we are just a little over a year into an endless pools contract. And we're like 30 games into a Hamilton contract

that I guess some people questioned when it was signed. And now that, I mean, it's maybe we're still in confirmation bias territory, but just the fact that he has looked basically like he did last year but worse just kind of supports the narrative that he's just not a guy who's going to age well and he's at a point where he's going to age poorly. And so far it looks like that's what he's been doing. So I wonder just today how many years could these guys get? Yeah, well, we hated the Hamilton deal the day it was signed. But I don't hate it much more now than I did then.

I think that the problem with the Hamilton deal is the same as it was then. And I personally haven't changed my opinion of Hamilton all that much. I don't think there's a whole lot different between him this year and last year, except for results. Now, Albert, though, when you think about Albert, think about the Mike Napoli deal where he signed with the Red Sox for, was it, 3-39? That's true. Then he failed his physical and he got 1-5.

I obviously haven't seen Albert's medical records, but my guess is that if he and Napoli's physicals were in a class, Napoli would set the curve and Albert would have to get tutorials. I think that it's really hard to figure what he would get because any team that signed him would look at his medical records. I don't know how much a team would invest in him right now. My guess is that it would be whatever he signed if he were a free agent right now, my guess would be short and incentive laden. Yeah. I mean, the current issue that he's dealing with is something that he's had for a while, right? I mean, on and off. And I think that they thought that his recovery from that is really a lot of what has exacerbated the plantar fasciitis this year.

And I don't think that it's – my guess is that – well, not my guess. I don't want to say that I'm all that confident that we've necessarily heard the full story. I mean, I think Albert has, uh, you know, pretty blatantly downplayed this in the media, despite all the appearances on the field. And it, you know, just, it wouldn't shock me to find out in a couple of weeks or a couple of days or whatever, that there's something a lot worse going on with his legs. Uh, you know, there's, there's something going on in his, in his, in his, in his lower body that has gotten worse and that doesn't seem to be getting better. All right. Well, that was depressing. Uh, okay.

So that's our first show of the week. Uh, email us at podcast at baseball perspectives.com. We will get to your emails in a couple of days and we'll be back tomorrow.