Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 51: What the Rockies Knew About Ubaldo/The Eternal Torii Hunter/Declining Dan Haren

Episode Date: September 27, 2012

Ben and Sam discuss the decline of Ubaldo Jimenez and whether the Rockies saw it coming when they sent him to Cleveland, then talk about the Angels’ off-season plans for Torii Hunter and Dan Haren.

Good morning, good evening, welcome to episode 51 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectus. I hope that we have a great show for you today, but Ben has just told me that he doesn't have a great feeling about this one, so it might be a good time to flee. I will start with a correction, omission, or error, if you'll allow me, Ben. I will. Last night, I said with great confidence and boldness

that I believed the Giants would include Melky Cabrera on their playoff roster. Roughly 40 seconds later, the Giants decided otherwise. And I wonder if you find after 51 episodes, or I guess after 50 episodes of this podcast, do you find yourself instinctually trying to make bolder and bolder statements? Not really. I do feel some pressure to hedge a little less than maybe is my natural inclination. But I don't know that either of us has come out with that many pronouncements that look immediately wrong. Just a few. Yeah, not that many, but I trust that you will keep me in line if I start to lose my discipline.

Do you have something to talk about today? Yeah, I feel like I'm always the guy who brings up a non-penant race topic, but mine is Ubaldo Jimenez. And I feel like I'm always the guy who brings up an Angels-related topic, and mine is Dan Heron and Tori Hunter. Okay. Go for it. Okay, so there were two pieces of news about U Baldo Jimenez that I read yesterday, or really just one piece of news and one reaction to it. The piece of news was that he was shut down with a sore ankle,

and at this point being shut down means he's only missing two starts. But his season is over, and it was not a successful season. In the first half, he looked pretty shaky, and then in the second half, it got much worse. There was a period where he looked sort of like the old Ebaldo for a little while, but he finished with an ERA of 6.99 in the second half. And it was pretty ugly. And so I read something, I think it might have been by someone at Hardball Talk, speculating about whether the Indians would pick up his option for next season, which is really sort of a shocking thing if you think of even how his contract looked a year or two ago when he was traded from the Rockies to the Indians. I think there was maybe

some sense that there was reason to be worried or to feel that maybe his best days were behind him. But the plus was looked at as his contract being extremely affordable. And so even if he didn't contend for a Cy Young again, he would be really a bargain. And he is making just over $4 million this year, just over $4 million this year, which would have been a bargain if he had been serviceable at all. He has a $5.75 million team option with a $1 million buyout for next year, and then an $8 million team option with a $1 million buyout for 2014. And obviously, that would be extremely affordable, even if he were, say, a league average starter. If he pitches again, like he did this season, of course, he's not worth much of anything. So you think the Indians are in a position probably to pick up that option. It's not a

crazy amount of money. And you never know. He's still fairly young. And really, what else do the Indians have going on right now? So why not? But I kind of look back at that trade because recently we looked back at the Austin Jackson trade, which is a trade that worked out for everyone. And a lot of players change teams, and you can kind of make an argument that almost every team in the deal won it or came away with something they're happy with. Whereas now, if you look at the Ubaldo Jimenez trade, the Indians have gotten Ubaldo Jimenez. The Rockies, of course, got Alex White and Drew Pomeranz, who were very well regarded prospects at the time, but have not really pitched any better than Ubaldo to this

point, or not significantly. Of course, they are still young and cheap. A combined, obviously, we don't care about record too much, but a combined 3 and 18. Yeah. So, yeah, record is not the greatest stat, but if you were 3 and 18. It's fun. Record is still a fun stat. Yes, it is. And I wonder, this is probably a topic for another episode, but I wonder why people like us still use it sometimes and still cite it. Because it's fun.

It is fun. On the extremes. it's not fun 14 and 12 is never fun but when i still see if i see somebody who's 18 and 3 still makes me giddy i don't know why yes it does more so than looking at their warp total or whatever just i guess it's kind of what you grew up with yeah but anyway anyway do you think the Rockies saw this coming um there was some speculation at the time just because Ubaldo was young and not far removed from an excellent season and affordable and the Rockies looked like they were still kind of maybe competitors not too far away in the future

there was some sense that maybe he was damaged goods that there was some reason why they would be willing to deal him with so much time left on his contract um he did lose a couple miles per hour off his fastball that season before they traded him uh and has lost even more this year and so there was some speculation that maybe the Rockies felt that he was broken in some way or breaking and was not going to be the same Ubaldo and that that's why they made that deal. Did you think that at the time and do you think that now? Probably not.

He was pretty dominant in the two months leading up to the trade. He had started out that season quite poorly. But as I recall, he was pitching very well at the time of the trade, and the numbers basically back that up over his final dozen starts in altitude. He struck out a batter per inning. He had three and a half strikeouts per walk he had a 3.48 era and he did it all with a um uh uncharacteristically high babbitt so i don't know that there would have been uh real big warning signs but we've talked before that teams do seem to know their own players there There's some indication, there's some evidence that teams know their own players better than other teams do.

And so especially pitchers. Is that what you said? Yes. So I guess, I mean, there's probably all sorts of indicators. I mean, you know, just going back to what we talked about with Travis Snyder yesterday. I mean, just going back to what we talked about with Travis Snyder yesterday, anybody could look at Travis Snyder's numbers and see that he was a disappointment with Toronto. But without knowing the conversations he was having with his coaches, without knowing his attitude toward instruction, there's a whole other part of it that you don't know. So certainly there are – I mean, maybe Ubaldo Jimenez is simply a flake. And if you're instructing him, you realize that he doesn't have much of a clue what he's doing or maybe it's just the opposite.

Would you care to make a bold pronouncement that that is the case? I would like to rather than do that, I would like to note that Ubaldo Jimenez has had five full seasons in the major leagues, and he has thrown eight wild pitches in two of those seasons and 16 wild pitches in each of the other three, which is a rare and bizarre numerical coincidence. Is wild pitches a very stable stat from your deer? I don't have a great sense of that. It actually goes 16-8, 16, 8, 16. It's, you know, 8 and 16, that's divisible. Yes. 16 was enough to lead the league two of those years. It's just weird that it's never mind. So we're talking about pitcher wins and wild pitches. I will make a bold. Yeah, I do want to boldly state, though, that I don't think that there's any real way that the Indians decline that option.

I mean, you're talking about almost no financial commitment. This is a team that brought Grady Sizemore back for five million. And Grady Sizemore was every $5 million, and Grady Sizemore was every bit as bad as Ubaldo, and he was that bad for two years. And so, yeah, I mean, in a way, they've actually invested more in Ubaldo than they did in Grady. So, yeah, they're going to bring him back, right? I think so, yeah. Or trade him.

I mean, they could trade him. Yeah, so at this point his value is at an all-time low. Yeah, but I mean, if we think it's obvious that you pick up a $5 million option on Baldingman, there's probably 29 other teams that do too and would give you something for him. Yeah. Well, it is sad that it's come to that. He now has a 5.4 ERA for the Indians. Not sad in an emotional sense.

I'm not really feeling that emotional about it. But he was a very exciting pitcher. Yeah, and there was a period in 2010 where you could actually make the argument that he might be the best pitcher in baseball. Yes. He was so good. And not just for that. I mean, he had been amazing the year before. And if you just looked at his pitches, they were incredible.

I mean, he probably had one of the half dozen best sinkers in the game, and it went 99 miles an hour to boot. It was incredible. And now he's down about three miles per hour, at least from that season. Yeah, that's what happens. Yeah, you know, it's funny, because when you trade a veteran pitcher for two pitching prospects,

you think about how unreliable pitching prospects are. But the fact is that pitchers, just all of them are. Every single one of them is unreliable. Yeah, Jonah Carey wrote an article at Grantland today about how the returns in trades for veteran pitchers have diminished in recent years that as recently as five years or so ago you would see pretty pretty like attractive prospect packages changing teams for starting pitchers and in the last five years or so, at least he was looking at offseason trades. It seems like the returns have really diminished and that teams are not as interested in paying

for pitchers or trading for pitchers and giving up as much for them. But he was kind of making the argument that it's still, with all the money in the game today, generally makes sense to hold on to your stars and that every team can afford it, and that since other teams aren't paying as much for them anymore, it makes even more sense to keep them. Once again, Ben brings a second topic to the table. Yes.

I never have one before the show, and then during the show I come up with three or four. So Dan Heron and Tori Hunter. I just am lumping these two together because they are both players who are potentially going to leave the Angels next year, next offseason, after this season. And because both have had kind of newsworthy updates to their status,

Dan Heron, it was reported today by MLB.com, will likely not have his option picked up, which is shocking. Not at the moment, but it would have been a few months ago. Absolutely shocking. That option is essentially $13 million. And Torrey Hunter apparently had a meeting with the team and came away convinced that they would do what it takes to bring him back. Yes, I read that, and I noticed it because we had just talked about that a little bit.

We talked about what? Oh, yes. I said I probably made a bold prediction about how he priced himself out yes and and and tory might be i'm not convinced that tory isn't being a little bit optimistic about the situation um but regardless um and so i just wanted to point out a couple of things um one is that tory hunter uh when he signed that deal of five years, $90 million, as I recall and I would imagine, that deal was fairly universally panned from the Angels' perspective, seen as probably an overpay for a non-star who was heading into his mid-30s

and would certainly see his defensive value decrease and whose defensive value was already perceived as being overblown. And Torrey Hunter has quietly, I suppose, had the three best years of his career offensively in his mid-30s. And you don't expect that. I remember when they traded for Vernon Wells, one of the more hopeful things that I heard was that one of Vernon Wells' top comps statistically was Torrey Hunter, and he was coming over at the same age. The thing is that Torrey Hunter, when he signed with the Angels, did not look like a good investment particularly. And it's sort of surprising,

but it's been impressive to see him stave off age because he does look older. He lost his position. He's clearly lost speed on the base pads. He had a wretched first half last year, but he has managed to just keep hitting. And this year is actually... He lost his position to, I guess, two of the best center fielders in the game. I don't know whether that has anything to do with it. I mean, he could have lost it with another team that didn't have a Trout or a Burgess or someone of that caliber. I don't know. I think that at that point he might have.

He didn't really want to give up this spot. And he probably would have fought in another organization if it hadn't been a Borges coming up. But he was physically worn down by the position, and there was a sense that it was not doing him any good to be in that position. I think he had that sense, and he acknowledged it after the fact. But anyway, that's a little bit off topic. And he's a very good right fielder, and he wasn't a very good center fielder. I don't know if he would have acknowledged that fact, without Borges pushing him. But yeah, so anyway, the point is that Torrey Hunter is actually

doing great. And Dan Heron is not, as we talked about a little bit in a previous episode when we revisited that trade. But similarly, that was a trade with almost universal opinion going one way. And it gets worse and worse for the Angels. And if the Angels don't pick up the option, they will have essentially gotten about five warp or less out of the Dan Heron deal. And so it's interesting that one of Tony Reagan's most panned trades turns out to be pretty good, not great. I mean, Torrey Hunter has been about four and a half or five million dollars per win. But that, of course, doesn't include any of the clubhouse stuff that the Angels do value. Whereas Dan Heron, boy, this sentence had too many clauses. I forget what my syntax was.

I don't even know what tense I'm supposed to be using any longer. You know where I'm getting there. Yeah, I've looked at Hunter's numbers and been impressed by them a few times over the past couple of years. I guess, I don't know if there's a perception that he's declined offensively, but just the raw totals are maybe not quite as impressive just because of the park. It's a tough place to hit for right-handed hitters, and so he has not...

He hit 31 home runs and 28 home runs in his last couple of years in Minnesota, and he's been more of a low-20s guy for the Angels, but certainly looking at the park-adjusted stats, he is every bit as productive as he ever was um and as a now a 36 year old or 37 year old i guess he is now that is impressive i i wonder how many years he'll get i kind of can't see him getting more than two, even as well as he's held up, but I could be wrong. Yeah, I would guess that that's going to – I mean, if I'm still making bold predictions, I would predict that Torrey will go looking for a three-year deal because he – it's his last chance to get one and that the Angels won't give him one.

his last chance to get one and that the Angels won't give him one. He also, incidentally, is a guy who learned patience, which is surprising because you don't think of the Angels as being a team that teaches patience at all. But he, not this year. This year he's been a bit different of a hitter with Albert behind him. But over the last two years he had career highs in walks. And I don't know. It's an interesting – he was a very aggressive hitter before.

He went to a team that has a reputation for being very aggressive offensively, and yet he learned to take pitches. So I don't know. It's been kind of fun to watch Tori Hunter, to be honest. And it'll be interesting to see if he's really this good because I don't think I was alone in thinking last year that the final year and a half of this contract was going to look very grim.

To be honest, I don't even know that he felt that confident about it. What makes you say that? I don't know. I don't remember. but here he is. What makes you say that? I don't know. I don't remember. I just, I'm vaguely recalling that he was a bit more, I don't know, he was, I don't know.

He sort of acknowledged that he was a little bit lost. Well, there will be a lot of off-season intrigue then when it comes to Angels free agents and starting pitchers. I read today that Jared Weaver said something about how he wouldn't mind if the Angels spent more to bring back Greinke than they spent on him. Yeah. Well, he better say that because he signed a below-market deal. And if he decides that they can never spend more on a pitcher then that limits them quite a bit um but yeah i mean they are looking at going from uh four aces and ervin

to potentially uh weaver and a somewhat broken down cj wilson and three question marks so it is interesting i've never known where the' ability to spend stopped because it seemed like every offseason they would kind of leak the number that they were going to start the year with. And they would always end up going above that. And then this year, this past year, they went way above it, but they faked it by heavily backloading Wilson and Pujols' deals. They faked it by heavily backloading Wilson and Pujols' deals, so they're basically getting nothing this year. And so I just am constantly waiting and wondering whether they're eventually going to have to stop spending, and it'll be interesting to see whether this is the year. Well, missing the playoffs won't help.

For a third year in a row. They probably will. What's this? Oakland and Baltimore both won tonight, and they were losing when we started the podcast. I think the Angels were two and a half back when we started. Yeah, they are currently. Or two back of Oakland.

They have tied Seattle. It is the seventh inning, and Kendry's Morales is up with the go-ahead run on second. So by the time we release this to the world, everybody will know what happened. We'll be back tomorrow with another podcast.