Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 504: Lester, Lackey, and the Red Sox as Sellers

Episode Date: July 31, 2014

Ben and Sam discuss Boston’s incentives to consider trading two of their top starters on trade deadline day.

Dream is blowing down. Dream is blowing down. Dream is blowing down. Dream is blowing down. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah Sam Miller, Editor-in-Chief of Baseball Perspectives. Hello. Hi, how are you? Okay, how are you? Pretty good. Got that trade deadline fever. So good.

Yeah, so good. Like most fevers. Pretty slow so far, but the danger about talking about trade deadline topics as we record the night before the trade deadline is that by the time you're listening to this, who knows what will have happened. So do you want to say anything first? Two quick things. Two quick things. One, nobody will care about this except one person, but I just want to note that my father,

who is a regular listener of this podcast, is retiring today. Today is his last day of work after 42 years of incredibly important and selfless work, and he taught me everything about baseball. He taught me how to like baseball, And he also taught me how to work. So the two things that brought me to this podcast are due to him, and as are a number of the questions we've answered on email Wednesdays. So I just want to note that, that I guess congratulate him or something, but I don't know how that goes. Nobody else knows who he is.

So I wanted to say that. The other thing is Brett Anderson. There were trade rumors about Brett Anderson. And then there were denials by the Rockies that they would ever trade Brett Anderson. They said, he is not on the table. He is not tradable. They have a one-year, $12 million option for him next year that they say they intend to exercise or perhaps sign him to a long-term deal.

And, Ben, what is up with Brett Anderson? Why do teams want him so much still? I understand that if I had the chance to have Brett Anderson, I would probably also want him. He used to be a very exciting pitcher, and he probably still isn't to some degree exciting. And he struck out nine batters and walked nobody in his start tonight. But he is almost the most extreme example right now of a pitcher who can't stay healthy. He might be the go-to guy.

And he hasn't even really been good when he's been pitching for a few years. His peripherals aren't notable this year. He's getting ground balls. He is a good ground ball pitcher, but he no longer strikes batters out like his promise was. He is only throwing 91, where he used to be up at 94. And he's only managed 40 innings this year, after 44 last year, after 35 the year before, after 83 the year before, after 112 the year before. Why would anybody who has Brett Anderson on their staff, and no disrespect to Brett Anderson, who's accomplished a great deal and might win a Cy Young at any given moment, but why would anybody who has Brett Anderson under their control

and a person willing to give real bona fide product for him not be wanting to do that? I don't know. I certainly wouldn't include him in untouchable players list. What was the term that we substituted for untouchable last year? Because someone used it like unreachable? Unreachable. Yeah, I don't know why he would deserve to be on any list of cornerstone players

that you wouldn't want to consider trading, if anyone should be on that kind of list. Maybe it's because he keeps having different injuries. Could that be why? Like, you can kind of convince yourself that it's just a series of freak things. Like, the time he missed this year was a fractured index finger. And the time he missed last year was a foot stress fracture and an ankle sprain and then before that it was tommy john surgery and and elbow stuff but it's it's different stuff

every year and maybe when it's a fracture you look at it and say anyone could could suffer a fracture it's not a it's not a chronic issue, and yet it's happened to him so many times that maybe it is. Maybe his bones are brittle. I don't know. So best guess, let's say the Rockies sign him to a four-year extension in this winter. I don't think they will, but let's say they do so they have them for 2015 16 17 and 18 what would be your best guess for how many innings he throws in those three 90 okay i was gonna say 315 it did i after you said three i for just a second you went

i thought you were going to say 15. You didn't. I didn't. There was also a Dan Ugla being released scare earlier tonight. He was reported that he has been released. He has not actually been released. He has a little longer leash as we discussed yesterday.

Congratulations to your dad, to Mr. Miller. We've got to keep the podcast going so he'll have something to do during his retirement. It was a commute podcast for him though. Oh, okay. So maybe he'll stop listening now. Okay, so I want to— Maybe he'll start his own podcast and defeat us through competition. That could be.

Keep an eye out for new podcasts. Maybe he and I will start a podcast and leave you. Ditch me, yeah. Maybe he'll hire him to write for Baseball Perspectives, and then you won't need me anymore. Maybe I'll just let him be the podcast co-host but not tell anybody and you'll just wonder why I'm so different. Does he sound like you? Nobody looks like me.

That won't do it. Okay, so I want to talk about the Red Sox. And again, it's a somewhat time-sensitive topical topic, but not really. We can talk about the Red Sox being rumored to be sellers, even if they don't actually sell later today. So the question, I guess, is why the Red Sox are sellers, or should they be sellers, or why are they reported to have been selling the players that they are selling? So I've been reading Over the Monster, the SB Nation Red Sox blog, where our friends Matthew Corey and Mark Normandin write. And Matt wrote about John Lester, who has, of course, been the subject of many trade rumors at this deadline period.

And Mark wrote about John Lackey, who has also been the subject of a lot of rumors. And I thought back to the last time that the Red Sox were sellers, August of 2012, when, of course, they pulled off the big Beckett-Crawford-Gonzalez deal with the Dodgers. pulled off the big Beckett-Crawford-Gonzalez deal with the Dodgers. And at the time, the Red Sox were almost exactly in the position that they are now in the division, at least. At the time, I think it was August 25th, 2012, maybe when that went official, they were 13 and a half games back in the AL East. They are, as we talk now, 13 games back in the AL East. They are, as we talk now, 13 games back in the AL East. They've actually played worse than they were playing at the time in 2012,

at least in terms of record. And so I'm wondering, they find themselves back in this position of selling again, and that trade was their way of kind of doing almost like a quickie rebuild, kind of just jettisoning these big contracts. They found a team in the Dodgers that is not usually around that was trying to do their own quickie rebuild fix up

and were willing to spend just about anything and were willing to take on Crawford's contract and Beckett's contract and Gonzalez's contract. And they got out from all of those financial obligations and then they were able to make some judicious signings over the offseason after that. And then they go on to win the World Series. And it seems like order has been restored. Of course, things have not gone as well for them this year.

And yet that trade still has some bearing on their situation now because the great thing about that trade from their perspective was that they got out from all of these massive contracts that were threatening to hamstring them for years to come. threatening to hamstring them for years to come they now have very very few financial obligations uh for you know beyond the next year or so matt points out in his piece over the monster that in 2016 the red sox have only about 13.4 million dollars committed to to two players uh they they don't have i mean they have some some homegrown guys obviously but but they don't have a lot of um let me pull up their their cots contract page um and i will give you an answer on that but uh one is a and one is a

245 000 buyout on clay buckholtz team option so right i'm guessing the other one is a $245,000 buyout on Clay Buchholz's team option. Right. I'm guessing the other one is Pedroia, maybe? Yeah, well, yeah, of course, Pedroia is definitely committed for some time. So it's not that they have to make these moves to reposition themselves in the way that they did the last time they sold. And it doesn't seem like they would consider themselves out of it for next year or that anyone would. Of course, the issue with Lester is that he is going to be a free agent. And for

whatever reason, they have not been able to come to an agreement on an extension, which I assumed, and I think the safe bet was that that would get done at some point, either before this year or during this year, just based on how good he's been and how he's been there for a while and the trend toward teams extending their players rather than letting them walk. And for whatever reason, they don't seem to be willing to give John Lester the kind of contract that he would command on the open market. And there is something that we talked about, I think last year, maybe with Chase Utley or some other player about the fact that teams never trade players who are approaching free agency

just to get the prospects and then bring them back and then re-sign them as free agents to kind of get to keep the player but also get the prospect tall. That never really happens. And we've wondered why it doesn't happen more often. And in Lester's case, he has said things that would suggest that that could happen, that he'd be interested in coming back, even if they traded him and that the Red Sox would be interested in keeping him. But once you trade him, of course, the Red Sox can't control

his market anymore. Anyone can come in with a big offer and swoop in and steal him away, even if the Red Sox would like to bring him back. So it's maybe kind of curious that they haven't just made a bigger commitment to him. What is it about him that worries them, I suppose, or that makes them not want to just pay what would seem to be the market rate for him? would seem to be the market rate for him. And then Lackey, of course, seems he is under contract for 2015 and he won't be making much money because of his elbow injury clause that converted the last year of his deal into league minimum salary or something close to it. So that doesn't seem like a guy you would necessarily want to sell either if you were committed to contending next year, as it seems like the Red Sox are.

So do you have any thoughts on why they would be interested in dealing these two players, why they would be interested in dealing these two players? Why they would be interested in dealing players, period? Well, so first let me ask you something. When we hear that they only have $13 million committed to 2016, anytime you hear that about a club, it's like, check out how awesome this club is. Look at what a great situation they're in. And anytime you hear the reverse, it's like, check out how awesome this club is. Like, look at what a great situation they're in. And anytime you hear the reverse, it's like, whoa, better be worried about these guys. They have, you know, half their payroll committed for 2016 or whatever. Do you think that at this point we should think of it that way?

Is it? Could you make the case that, in fact, they, I mean, because if you didn't know baseball intimately, as we do, and if you didn't view baseball as essentially a game of animated contracts running around and battling each other, you would be like, oh, they don't have any players for 2016. What are they going to do? And, of course, we know that that's not really... hasn't been the way to look at things for the last 30-ish years, 25, 30 years.

But we've also talked recently a lot in the last couple of years about how it's a lot harder to judge free agent signings anymore or extensions anymore because it's hard to get players. It's actually hard to sort of get the players that you would like to spend your money on. There's not that many of them out there. They're hard to get. And that's why teams are able to move their bad contracts easier than ever and so on. So is there any part of you that hears that fact about the Red Sox and thinks,

oh, wow, yeah, no, they don't have... I mean, this team that last year won the World Series was dependent on David Ortiz, they don't have him under contract, and Koji Ohara, they don't have him under contract, and Mike Napoli, and John Lester, and John Lackey, and, you know, numerous other players, Jacob Ellsbury, obviously, who they don't have anymore. And so they do have to figure out a way to put together a roster, right? So is there any part of you that hears that fact

and thinks that they're kind of in a bad spot, or is that off the table? Yeah, or at least in a spot where they wouldn't necessarily want to get rid of guys who are ready right now. And Matt, I think, sort of addressed that at the end of his post when he writes, the Red Sox don't need more prospects. They do need to compete and win next season. John Lester can help them do that better than anyone.

They can inquire in trade and more cheaply than anyone available to the team through trade or the free agent market, et cetera, et cetera, that, yeah, they have a good base of prospects, some of whom are up already, promising young players, some of whom are in the high minors. And so those guys are going to keep the payroll down for the foreseeable future. So you'd, you'd think that, that they would want to keep a few veterans around, or at least that it wouldn't be a problem to keep a few veterans around. So it, it seems like, you know, that makes you think that maybe they are just not as high on Lester for the future as, as people would maybe think that they'd be, that they just don't think it would be a good contract if they signed him to it, because it's, it's not that they'd be, that they just don't think it would be a good contract

if they signed him to it because it's not that they couldn't find room for him or either on the roster or in the payroll. So now, and yeah, so when we talk about the great story of the 2013 Red Sox and everybody talks about how, you know, they went and signed eight free agents or whatever, but they were all the short-term deals and they all turned out great. The problem with short term deals is that they're over really quick. It's like a single deck blackjack, right? Everybody thinks single deck blackjack is so great because you can count the cards really easily. But the problem is that by the time you've gotten an advantage, the deck's done. And then they reshuffle and

you have a new deck. And it's sort of like that with some of these short-term deals. Obviously, a lot of these guys, it's not like anybody wants Johnny Gomes for seven years. But if you get a really sweet deal on Koji Ohara, it might actually be kind of nice to have him for a long time instead of just two years. I mean, obviously, you're exposed to more risk in that scenario, but you also have Koji Ohara for a long time. Anyway, I'm trying to talk myself into a position I don't think I actually believe, just in case anybody's wondering. So, with Lester, I don't know, Ben, the tone in your voice implies that you think there's something, like, complicated about this. Lester wants to get paid his market value, and the Red Sox think that he's not worth that much.

I mean, I'm sure they've had plenty of opportunities to reach an agreement on years and dollars. But Lester wasn't, Lester looked gone, gone like a year and a half ago. You can sort of understand why you wouldn't be completely convinced by this walk year performance. I mean, he's been a good pitcher for a very long time, but pitchers aren't necessarily what they look like at their very best. And when a guy is hitting the market when he's at his very best, he probably has an idea that he's going to get the very best possible money. And probably because he will.

He probably actually will get something like Zach Granke money. But I don't think that he is Zach Granke. I think he's more like maybe James Shields. And you can have relatively small disagreements like that, and those relatively small disagreements equate to $40 million in the real world. And so, particularly for a franchise that has kind of vocally sworn off the sort of long-term deals that free agents who are hitting the market at age 31 certainly want to get. Other than the fact that Jon Lester is a red saw, they're not a very good fit for each other. Yeah, I suppose there's something to that. Yeah, I mean, maybe you just don't want to buy high.

You would kind of be buying high on him. But he's still going to be one of the best options available this winter, and they could use a guy like that for next season. They could. But it's just that the Red Sox seem to have, the lesson that the Red Sox seem to have learned from five years ago is that you don't get too overwhelmed by your needs for next year to the point that you start signing everybody to five and six year deals. I mean, they're not going to be able to find a Dodgers to bail them out of the next bad batch. And I mean, I'm not saying that they shouldn't sign Lester or that they can't afford him more than, you know, as much as any other team and that he doesn't fit their short and

long term needs and that he won't be a decent deal. I'm just saying that like based on the words that come out of the front office's mouth, they seem like the team that, uh, particularly among the small handful of teams that are legitimate contenders for a guy of his caliber, they seem like the one that is,

uh, like least prone by temperament to seek that guy out. I don't know what the alternative is. I guess the alternative isn't to get Ryan Dempsters, you know, five Ryan Dempsters every offseason. If you could, maybe it would be, but it's, you know, it's hard to corner the market on pretty good pitchers who are willing to take one or two-year deals. So I don't know what the alternative is necessarily, but my guess is that they would be looking for somebody

who can provide 85% of John Lester at 50% of the contract length. Yeah, sure. And in Lackey's case, I mentioned the contract, but of course to keep him and to keep him happy, you might have to give him some sort of extension. He has hinted that he might not really want to pitch for that amount of money. Oh, I hate that. Doesn't that just kill you?

Don't you just feel like we're all Charlie Brown in this situation? We spend two years talking about how cool this option is and being happy that finally somebody's gonna actually be a good deal yeah and then and then he just then you realize oh no they can just be jerks like like there's no defense against ball players being being petulant there's just no defense what do you do you can't you can't put in the contract, and you have to be cool, man. Yeah, I think I might have mentioned once the thing that John Hart said when I was talking to him once before an MLB Network thing

about how he was worried when he signed someone. I think it was Omar Vizquel. Yeah, Omar Vizquel, yeah. He was worried when he signed him to a contract that seemed really team-friendly because as good as it seemed for the Indians at the time, he looked ahead and he knew that at some point Vizquel would realize that it seemed really good

for the Indians too and that he wouldn't be happy playing for that amount. And so he tried to build in some protection there and say, you know, we're not going to renegotiate this thing. But then complaints surfaced at some point. Because, yeah, I guess if you get too good a deal, then your player isn't happy and your player makes threats and you almost have to make it less good a deal just to keep the guy playing,

which is too bad from the team perspective. It's kind of interesting to think back about the 2012, the summer trade that the Red Sox made to the Dodgers, and John Lackey at the time was so bad that even the Dodgers wouldn't take that on, and he probably would have been the best get in that deal, I would guess. Particularly when you consider the option. But even without the option at this point, I think you could argue maybe that John Lackey has been the most useful

of the three players plus him. Maybe. Him and Gonzalez, I would say, are pretty close, but Lackey's been paid less. And of course, Lackey's contract from here on out is super good, and Gonzalez's contract from here on out is pretty bad. Right. Yeah, okay.

Well, again, it makes sense to listen to offers for anyone. Even if the Rockies don't agree about Brett Anderson. Might as well see what you can get for Lackey or Lester or whoever. Well, I would guess that if Lackey's planning on pouting, that he's really not going to like seeing trade rumors that would send him to Pittsburgh or whatever all day tomorrow. Because if you feel like you are an undervalued commodity who is being kind of, I mean, if you talk yourself into this,

being exploited by the team, then to be shopped around as a commodity against your will will probably only make it a little bit worse. Sure. Not that that's the right thing for John Nike to feel, but it might be. I mean, John Nike, man. Guy can't even eat noodles. Yeah, that's a callback I almost forgot.

Okay. So what would you guess tomorrow? By the time some people listen to this, it will already be done. Do you think which of the Johns will be a Red Sox? I think Lackey will still be. And Lester, I guess I'd, I guess I'd put the odds slightly in favor of a trade at this point.

And let's say they trade him. What kind of odds would it take for you to bet on him being the Red Sox starter next opening day? I'd probably give that about a 15% chance. Yeah, so I was going to say 1-8, so that's pretty close. I know you said we talked about it last year, but it is so weird. If Lester thinks that he's likely to be on the Red Sox next year, weird if if lester thinks that he is likely to be on the red sox next year just by like if he thinks that you know like he'll stick around for the next two months and then you know sign an

extension or re-sign with them it just it seems so obvious that he would want the franchise to be as good as possible and most of the time the all these guys can do, they can do basically two things to make the franchise better. They can play better or they can be paid less. And nobody wants to do the latter. And they're already trying to do the former. But this is one thing where he could actually, just by agreeing to go somewhere else for two months and have no hard feelings and to really sort of commit to that idea that, like, I'm going to, yeah, I want to be here. Reassure him I want to be here.

He can get them two really good prospects to stand behind him for the next five or six years. And it costs him nothing. I mean, it costs him nothing. It costs him a couple months of maybe inconvenience or maybe a World Series ring. And yet you don't see it. That's so weird that we don't see it. You'd think players would be demanding this. Like, if I were Jon Lester, I might actually go to the

Red Sox and say, idiots, if you don't trade me because you're trying to re-sign me, I will not sign with you because you guys aren't going to be as good as you could have been. So this is me exerting my influence on you to make the team behind me better.

If you want to sign me, there have to be two more prospects in your system than there are right now. And I'd make them do it. Yeah. I don't know. I guess it's more complicated than it sounds. I guess it's messy in practice. Maybe it's like an open relationship or something. You could agree that maybe that would work,

but then in practice it maybe doesn't work so well because once you trade the guy to a different team and he sees that there are other teams in baseball and that he can continue to play for them and play well and be happy playing for them and maybe be happier in some respects, then you probably lose some leverage. Even if he fully intends to come back or he's interested in coming back and you're both interested in making it happen,

just having been out of the uniform for a few months, I suppose, makes it easier to envision a future where you continue to wear a different uniform and then are more receptive to other teams that might make offers. Part of the deal should be that he has to wear the Red Sox uniform under his new uniform. At least like an undershirt or something. Or a tattoo, if you got a tattoo. Uh-huh. Yeah, permanent.

Yeah. Okay. So we'll see what happens. We will discuss, dissect any big trades that go down on our Friday show. And enjoy the trade deadline. We'll be back tomorrow. Wait. Oh, please support our sponsor, Baseball Reference. Go'll be back tomorrow. Please support our sponsor,

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