Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 269: Revisiting the Jose Fernandez Call-Up/Handicapping Cano’s Suitors

Episode Date: August 20, 2013

Ben and Sam reevaluate whether the Marlins’ early promotion of Jose Fernandez made sense, then talk about where Robinson Cano will end up.

I mean, I hate to use the term wild or effectively wild because he's not wild, but he's missed enough where it puts something in the back of your mind to hit it. Yeah, you're not comfortable looking for one spot against him. Good morning and welcome to episode 269 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives. I am Ben Lindberg, joined by Sam Miller. Hello, Sam. Howdy.

Anything to say before we start? No. Well, no. Okay. All business, then. What's your topic? Robinson Canoe. Okay. And mine is Jose Fernandez. Okay. Go for it. All right, so I just wanted to revisit a discussion that we had earlier this year that I do not recall any of. We talked about the service time considerations when Jose Fernandez was called up.

This was on April 8th, episode 176. And basically the thing is that if the Marlins had waited even just a couple weeks, a few weeks, to call up Fernandez, he would not have become a free agent until a year later, which seems like sort of an important thing for any team to consider, especially a team that doesn't spend a lot of money like the Marlins. So now I thought we could revisit that because Jose Fernandez's season is almost at an end. He beat the Dodgers Monday, which is almost an impossible task. The Dodgers are now in a losing streak.

They have lost two in a row. And Hernandez is now at 145 and two-thirds innings. He is supposedly going to be limited to 150 to 170. So he is very close to done. He's probably just got a few more starts left, and maybe we'll wrap up in early September, and then that will be that be we presume that they are not planning on optioning him at that point uh not i i don't know if if the if the concern is the innings um i mean well you you don't mean like having pitch in the minors you just you just mean option yeah yeah uh that i don't know um having pitch in the minors. You just mean... Option him, yeah. Yeah.

That I don't know. I mean, it would not play well. No. It is not, right. It is not like the twins optioning Kyle Gibson in his 34 ERA. Yeah, I would think the players union would probably not be pleased about that and are not big fans of the Marlins as it is. So let's assume that they don't do that.

Does it change anything that he has been amazing? I mean, when he was called up, there was some concern that possibly he wasn't ready. Now, obviously, we know that the Marlins were right about that, or it seems that they knew their guy and they knew that he was completely ready. Without ever appearing in AA or AAA, he was ready to dominate at the major league level, and he has. And it's been wonderful, and I'm glad we've all gotten to see it but uh does it does it make sense does it change anything that he has been dominant and that leaving him in the

minors even for a few starts would have been probably a waste developmentally speaking or does it still kind of come down to what was the point right to to what end did they get all of this right from him yeah uh yeah because if you're i mean if you're selling off everything that isn't nailed down um then you know to some degree uh like jose fernandez service time is also an asset that you are kind of to sort of stretch it into a metaphor or something, that you are not selling off. It's like the one thing that you're paying for. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess that slowly the conversation that we had is coming back to me. I think that at one point we mentioned that one benefit to the Marlins is that they've

given their fans nothing this year. They went into the season basically in a losing streak. It's like they had lost five months in a row. They were just going into the season in a losing streak. It's like they had lost five months in a row, and they were just going into the season in this sort of miserable place. And so just by bringing him up, you snap the losing streak, and you get this one victory that fans can hold on to. Maybe it's worth it for that. The thing is that presumably, it's not necessarily the case, but presumably Fernandez is either going to sign a long extension or Fernandez is going to get traded before his sixth year comes up, right?

Yeah. And before it matters a lot. Now, obviously, if you're trading him, his contract status is part of the trade calculus. And the team that trades for him is aware of his contract status is part of the trade calculus and the team that trades for him is aware of his his uh you know his contract status and if if fernandez has an extra year of club control he's going to be worth more to the team and so it's not that that's a non-issue but i think it does get sort of smoothed out a little bit um and they probably like like let's say that the the value of uh keeping him down have been, I don't know, say $5 million.

It's $5 million in surplus value that they're giving up. My guess is that the way that trades work, they probably give up some of that, but not all $5 million. They lose a couple million in surplus value trading him off. But probably not a lot. These trades, we don't really know how to calculate things well enough to make them actually even. So they're all kind of rough guesstimates. And once you get down to the $2 million of surplus value for a player who, when he gets

traded, is likely going to have $30 or $40 or $50 million worth of surplus value. It's basically a rounding error. It's probably not likely to show up. So from the Marlins' perspective, it's very unlikely that the specific sixth year of club control is ever going to be used. And so it's just kind of a matter of how much of the hypothetical sixth year of club control they're going to lose. So I don't know. I kind of think this Marlins season didn't go as poorly as it could have and maybe arguably as it should have. And I think that this is a rare case where I sort of feel like that was necessary,

where I sort of feel like that was necessary. That the difference between, you know, 55 wins and 65 wins actually does seem fairly significant this year. And, you know, there might be some benefit, too, in getting, you know, by bringing Fernandez up for the start of the season and really letting him, you know, pitch uninterrupted for a full season as a 20-year-old, you might have some kind of like, or at least they might perceive some side benefit in his development as an ace, like capital A, ace. So I don't know.

I guess I don't mind it, but I kind of don't mind it because I enjoyed it and it worked out well. I mean, if it had worked out 10% less well, then maybe it would have looked terrible. And no matter how much they knew about him and no matter how much they knew about his ability to thrive, they didn't know this was going to happen. They had hopes that it would happen. They might have had some sort of odds that they put on it happening, but they did not know that he was going to pitch exactly this good.

Yeah. And if he hadn't, then it wouldn't have looked as good. Yeah. he was going to pitch exactly this good. Yeah. And if he hadn't, then it wouldn't have looked this good. Yeah. And the difference in wins, realistically, is, I mean, what, one, two?

I mean, we're talking about three starts. Uh-huh. And, you know, maybe he wins two or three of those starts, and whoever else would have been starting wins one or two or none, but it's, you know But there's just not enough time for it to be a big impact. Well, if you're talking about their options, their option really was to – they had the option of bringing him up for opening day. They had the option of waiting three weeks. They had the option of waiting until mid-June. But he hadn't pitched AA yet.

It would have been very easy for them to keep him down until next year, three weeks into season two. Nobody would have noticed if they had done that. If he had been called up April 29th, 2014, nobody would have noticed anything funny going on. It's not necessarily just three starts. There's different tiers of choices that they got to make yeah uh right so i mean he had uh what was his era in the the first half 2.75 and he's gotten way better since then um but but yeah i mean if he had done i mean i don't know what the what the translation or the minor league equivalency is for that in double a but something crazy um so you know if he had gone out and had a two era or sub two era for the first half or something then people probably would have

been calling for some sort of promotion um possibly but but yeah it wasn't even on the radar uh when they did call him up no one was was saying why aren't the marlins giving this guy a shot no one even considered really that they might give him a shot came as a complete surprise i thought i had missed i i thought i had misunderstood at the time i i thought that like i thought that it was like sometimes you'll see like a tweet that'll be like uh uh you know carlos correa gets promoted and you're're like, holy cow, Carlos Correa. And then you find out it's like from the Midwest League to the California League. And it takes you, because you weren't paying very much attention to this,

it takes you like three weeks before you realize it. And you only realize it when like your fantasy league shortstop goes down or something. And you like run to the waiver wire to pick up, you know, Xanderson and you realize that he's still in patucket uh so so that that probably happens to everybody that's like the most relatable thing in the world i've ever said right everybody's at home just not universal experience yeah yeah um so so it is a it was i don't know, it's a strange move for the Marlins considering the other moves they make where they just prioritize money over over everything. It seems like like with the Ricky Nolasco trade, prioritizing getting rid of his contract instead of possibly getting a good, good prospect back. So it's it seems kind of inconsistent. And I guess I see what you're saying about possibly changing the narrative early enough in the season, get some positivity surrounding the team or excitement or something. are averaging 18,500 fans, which is down about 10,000 or so from their first season in the new stadium last year

and is worse than anyone but the Rays. So it's not as if there's been a great groundswell of support. No, of course not. But they're all losing situations for the Marlins. I mean, it's like that movie 127 Hours when he's drinking his water and he's only got a little bit of water. And it's not like he has so much water that he's going to be in perfect health and just an awesome place. He's not going to be thrilled with his water supply, but it's just a tiny little bit and it keeps him alive. That's all it is.

It's just something to keep the heart beating every minute or two until it can get saved. Yeah, all right. So I can see that. Then again, if the value that they sacrificed is $3 million, that's more than they're currently paying any of their players. So it's not an insignificant amount. It's not. It's just hard for me to get too fired up about anything that the Marlins do that's good or bad because I just don't think I take them seriously as a contender in the rest

of my lifetime. I just sort of think like everything they do is going to be, everything they do is going to lead to loss. So, you know, this is probably kind of, this is probably going to lead to loss and the alternative would have led to loss. I mean, they're just going to lose. And so, you know, you take a, take a shot on whatever dumb idea you have. Maybe it's slightly better. Maybe it works. But you know, there's know, there's no like winning plan for them right now. The winning plan is like maybe five years of things go perfectly well and they get to reset and hope that we have forgotten and everybody else has forgotten. Yeah, right.

I mean, the plan is usually for Jeffrey Luria to pocket more money, it seems. And so the successful plan would be for him to pocket more of that money. So I guess it's surprising to me still that they deviated from that. And I wonder if it's that maybe they didn't think that they were sacrificing any money. Maybe you're right, that they did some kind of analysis that suggested that having him up early would, over the long run produce more ticket sales or fan interest or something and it would all even out uh perhaps perhaps it has um but it's it's nice for us that we've gotten to see or will have gotten to see almost a full

season of fernandez doing uh really historic and amazing things. All right. So my topic is Robinson Cano today. USA Today's Bob Nightingale reported that the Dodgers have privately stated that they won't what? Not completely privately because Bob Nightingale is reporting it, but yes. Yeah, that's true. They're not going to go after Robinson Cano this offseason. And Robinson Cano, I think I was certainly anticipating the bidding war

between the Dodgers and the Yankees for Cano, and I was interested to see if the Yankees were destined to get him back. I was interested to see how much the Dodgers could move the price upward. Cano's sort of tailed off a bit, so I don't think he's going to. But it seemed at a certain point that there was some outside chance, not a great chance, but some outside chance that he could be going into free agency coming off of another monster season with two teams desperate for his services, the two richest teams in baseball history, and then we might see the first $300 million

contract. And that's probably not going to happen, but there's still going to be quite a bit of demand for him. He's by far the best free agent on the market. Based on this news that the Dodgers privately plan not to pursue him, I wanted to get your handicapping of the teams in the Robins and Cano race, and I wanted to know what percentage chances you think each of them have. And so I asked you in advance to prepare your 100% distribution of odds, and I've done the same.

And I'm curious to hear how you think that the outlook is for Cano right now. Okay. There was also news about the Angels and Dodgers having held discussions about a Howie Kendrick trade that came out yesterday too. And that was to some degree wrapped into this story as like maybe the Dodgers were looking at other options, you know, other than Canoe. And this sort of supports the idea that they don't necessarily intend to have Canoe. Yeah, and to be honest, I think if you had asked me yesterday, I'm not really sure that my Dodgers percentage has changed as a result of this story. I don't think I would bump it down all that much just because of a private, not private conversation that supposedly leaked.

Yeah, me neither. Okay. Almost no change in my mind. I don't really believe the conversation originally. You know? Yeah. I don't really believe that whatever... It could be one of those things where someone sat down and said,

hey, let's have a conversation about this so that we can tell a reporter that we had a conversation about this. Yeah, it could be. And it also could be that there's a whole lot of decision makers in the Dodgers front office. And then one of them told another one, I don't think we should go get Cano. And that's what – I mean, you know. And plus, it's August. I don't think they know what they're going to do. Well, maybe they do.

But anyway, it doesn't change my opinion. So go ahead. So are you going to ask me about specific teams, or are we just ranking them, or what? Well, why don't we just start by what is the team you think is most likely to get Robinson Cano? The Yankees. I also think the Yankees. What is your percentage? 42.

Okay. I have them at 51. So you have a plurality. I have a majority. Yeah. I had to fight the urge to put it even higher. So you think it is more likely that Robinson Cano will be playing somewhere else than in New York next year? You actually think it is more likely that he will leave than he will stay?

I guess so. I guess that's the implication. I'm not really comfortable with my having said that, and I kept trying to bump it up and figure out where I could bump down to get them a little bit higher, but ultimately I left it there. All right. Do do you have the Dodgers number two? Yes. And what percentage do you have then? 15. 15, wow. So I have the Dodgers at 26. So I've already given up three quarters of my pie,

and you're just barely past half. Yeah. I just, yeah, I don't think I'm very good at predicting where free agents will go. No, this is a completely farcical conversation. I've built in a lot of uncertainty here and given a lot of teams tiny chances. How many teams do you have on your list? Well, I did.

Okay, so how many have at least a 1% chance? Yeah, yeah. a 1% chance? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I put, I have like 17 with 17 with a 1% chance. At least you have 17 days.

You're saying that there are teams that are not the eggs in the Dodgers that you give a 1% chance to 15 teams. Yeah. That's incredible. I can't wait to hear your list. Yeah. Uh, incredible. I can't wait to hear your list. Yeah. Well, see, there are a lot that seem so unlikely that I would say it's just about impossible. But I feel like I am terrible at predicting free agents and that if I did this exercise with every free agent every winter, I mean, you can narrow down the list to some extent.

You have, I don't know, like, okay, so the 11 teams that I have that have zeros or 12 teams I have that have zeros are teams that never spend on anyone. Or they just locked up a second baseman or something. And there's no real flexibility anywhere else for them to move someone. Yeah. You have the Astros. Do you have the Astros on there? The Astros are a zero. Oh, I wanted so badly to give the Astros a one,

but I just couldn't make it happen. Yeah. Double zero. Yeah. So, yeah, it's just a reflection of the fact that I don't think I know what I'm doing here. I mean, every year people predict free agent destinations, and there are crowdsourced ones on MLB Trade Rumors, and there are expert ones. expert ones and again i mean you can always rule out some teams or just about but how many how many i mean when we did a we did a 30 or we did a top 50 free agents list um and and rj predicted destinations and i don't remember what his success rate was i i should have looked

before we started recording but it wasn't i was not good no they're never good no they're never destinations and i don't remember what his success rate was i i should have looked before we started recording but it wasn't oh it's not good no they're never good no they're never i'm not expecting yeah no i know but i mean just just so that you understand a one percent chance means that there's a one in a hundred chance you're aware of that yeah yeah so you can you can acknowledge the possibility of a thing happening without simply going to 1 in 100, which is the odds of some of your teams. I would guess that the odds of a few of your teams on there are lower than 1 in 100. But, however, I will say your point is well taken. And, in fact, I did that thing last year or during the offseason looking at Jerry Krasnick's pull the GM story that he does every year.

And he polls a bunch of GMs. And they also are no better than random chance at predicting where free agents are going to go. And they also sometimes name a whole bunch of teams and fail to get the team that actually signs the player. And they should know so much better than we do. So, I mean, your point is taken, but I still, i do assume i'm going to laugh at some of the teams that you've given percentage so all right so we've talked about the dodgers and the yankees uh who do you have third uh i have the the tigers and the orioles tied at seven tigers and orioles at seven i don't have the tigers i have the tigers with zero uh zero percent um But maybe I should have it at one.

I have the Orioles at three percent. I think that's a good – like I think that the Orioles are unlikely to sign him, obviously. They have three percent in my mind. But they are extremely likely to be tied to him. Yes. They're tied to every free agent. Ultimately, they never seem to get any of the big ones. But they try.

Well, the last couple of years, I think the last couple of years, they've stopped being tied to players for the most part. But now I think they will get back into the being tied to game. I think they're going to want to make that big splash. They probably think that they're one big move away. So why Tigers at zero or one or whatever? I don't know. I guess it doesn't seem like – I don't know. I'm not sure.

I guess they've gotten decent performance from second base this year is probably why I thought that, but that's probably irrelevant. It's an irrelevant thing. They're still going to have an opening there. And Infante is a free agent. Yeah, exactly. So I don't know why I have them in zero. They just strike me as a team without a lot of money to spend. And the other thing is that they've been so successful that they're not probably a team that's going to see themselves as one move away. They're in a really good space

right now and I think they're going to want to mostly stay where they are and to some degree work on building a little bit of a farm system so they can smoothly transition into the next winning team. They're not desperate. They don't need to do anything. They're doing great. Yeah, sure. But zero's too low. You're right. They should have been a 1% or at least for me.

All right. My number three team was the Angels. Okay. At 7%, which might be a little high. I had the Angels at four. I think that it would be just like them to decide that the problem is they haven't been signing enough big free agents. There's basically no starting pitching available on the market. They are desperate, desperate for starting pitching.

They have none in the farm system at all. They have a completely barren farm system for pitching. And so I could see them trading Howie Kendrick. They would consider it easier to trade for pitching than sign pitching, and then make their big splash with Robinson Cano. I mean, Artie's perpetually on tilt these days. And who knows? I mean, the last two off-seasons, if the accounts that we hear from insiders are true, the last two off-seasons, he's essentially said, I want the biggest free agent on the market. And I don't care what the GM says.

I want to go get him. And so who knows? Who's to say he won't do it a third time? So even though it would be suicide. But I don't know. If they do it, you know what? If they do it, everybody's going to talk about how great they are and how amazing the lineup is now they should be favorites in the west so that's probably why they'll do it and maybe they would be um all right so uh you got

them at four uh do you have anybody between four and seven uh i had the blue jays at five i did not include the blue jays but i thought thought about it. Yeah, see, I mean, not likely. We probably don't have to say that for every team because every team is not likely, or at least after the Yankees. But, yeah, I mean, second base is kind of the position in the lineup where they don't really have an established guy so much. They haven't gotten great production out of it. They will be competing next year.

They'll have, I don't know, I guess Josh Johnson off the books, and Cano's already been in the division, and they'd be taking him away from another team in the division. And, you know, they have some money and and yeah so all those things add up to something they have to also convince cano to play for them though like like that's the thing about these is that there's to me there's a five percent chance that the blue jays would be interested uh-huh there's a like a one in maybe 15 chance at that point that they could actually land him and so that's why for me a blue jays would be you know like round down to zero like it's a

greater than zero but it's a round down because i don't i'm not convinced that it makes i it's a it's a long shot that they would even try to make so uh all right uh i had the Cubs at 5%. Yeah, I had the Cubs at 3%. Okay. I had the Nationals at 3%. I had them at 2%. I had the White Sox at 3%. Really? Huh. I had the White Sox as a 1%. I could see the White Sox deciding to get in it in a hurry. The White Sox seemed like a team to me that could try to get in it in a hurry. The White Sox seem like a team to me that could try to get in it in a hurry.

Yeah, that's possible. I don't, yeah, I mean, even he doesn't get them in it. But, yeah, I mean, Han said something about this being a reshaping rather than a rebuilding. And, of course, Kenny Williams is always there, probably pushing to to contend constantly so so sure okay i have the mariners at one percent me too and i have the royals at one percent although i kind of think maybe the royals i want to have two that also i i i think

i move the royals down to one just because it's i don't know that they can sign anybody i think it i it's really hard to imagine cano like like it's really hard for me to imagine jay-z being like no no seriously dude the barbecue is really good like just just do it it's fun you get away from it all you don't need the big city right trust me you need to get it's better where it's quiet. Yeah, right. And why would he want to go to Kauffman where it's impossible to walk or hit home runs? Yeah, exactly. Tough sell.

So who rounds out yours? So I had the Mets at four, which could be crazy. But they have said that they're going to spend some money on free agents. Probably wouldn't be the first time that they said they would spend something and then didn't, but they kind of have the young core that is maybe kind of coming together where you could see that they could be competitive in a couple years and perhaps they have some money to spend and it's new york and you know i don't know maybe they'd like to steal him from the yankees or something like that so concrete jungle where dreams are made of yeah right so matt um let's see and then uh national I didn't really have anyone that we haven't mentioned

with a high percentage it was just kind of the the tale of ones that I had I want to hear your tale of ones okay so I had you had I put the

Braves as a one I don't remember why I did that I put the Braves as a one. I don't remember why I did that. I don't know. They have Dan Agla, so there's no... You don't need to explain your ones. Okay, all right. He doesn't want to know them. Explain the ones.

Let's see. I had the Giants as a one. I had the Rangers as a one. Just, I don't know. They don't really have a position for him. They have more infielders than they need. But I just kind of felt like any competitive team that spends money on players, I was going to give a one. Just because who knows? Maybe they'd be interested. I had the Rockies on there. Just because, you know, the Rockies could probably... Robinson Cano would make them better, I think.

They don't really have anyone good playing second base these days. So you never know what the rockies will do uh so i put them in there as a wild card um i had the brewers as a one which is insane so i'm changing that to a zero uh-huh so give that to the Yankees, 43. Okay, all right, I'm also going to change. I put one for Diamondbacks under the competitive team that spends a little money theory, but that's crazy because he's not nearly gritty enough for that team, aside from the fact that they sign, well, I don't

know. I guess, I mean, Aaron Hill is there and was signed to an extension. So I'm going to move them down to zero because they would never want someone who doesn't run 118% on every ground ball. And who else have we not mentioned here? All right, let's wrap it up. Yeah, I think I pretty much got to everyone. That's the end of another great show.

Yep. Yeah, good exercise. Great idea. All right. I exercise. Great idea. All right. I hope people enjoyed that. Tomorrow is the email show, and I think we could still use some emails, having glanced at the inbox. So send us some at podcast at baseballperspectives.com.