Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 520: Garrett Richards and the Most Pivotal Pain of 2014

Episode Date: August 22, 2014

Ben and Sam discuss the Angels’ loss of Garrett Richards and the other costliest injuries of 2014.

There is a world of pain In the falling rain Here I'll be Good morning and welcome to episode 520 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives presented by the BaseballReference.com Play Index. I am Ben Lindberg of Grantland.com, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Perspectives. Howdy, Ben. Howdy.

How are you? Excited. Last show of the week. Indeed. Excited that we're closer to next week's shows only three more days so a quick update on something we talked about quite a while ago we discussed this exhibition series that major league baseball players are playing in Japan after the conclusion of the season. It's in November. This team of MLB All-Stars is going to go to Japan and play five games and then another couple exhibition games. Although, as I mentioned at the time, they're really all exhibition games in a

sense. And we wondered at the time, who would want to go on this journey? Who would want to make this trip after the season is over to play more games? And today we found out some of the names of the players who will be on that trip, and they're pretty big names. Robinson Cano, Adam Jones, Albert Pujols, and Yasiel Puig will highlight the team, which will be managed by Ron Washington, and the rest of the roster has not been announced. Perhaps tellingly, none of those players is a pitcher. We wondered whether any pitchers would want to make this trip

and continue to pitch. So I don't know whether the fact that no pitchers were announced means that they're having a harder time getting pitchers, I don't know whether the fact that no pitchers were announced means that they're having a harder time getting pitchers, but now we know. Did you see in one of the articles about this, they mentioned some of the 2006 roster. Did you see this? Yeah. Bronson Arroyo, Ryan Howard, John Lackey, who we have previously stated is the one man in Major League Baseball we wouldn't trust to eat noodles. He went, Joe Maurer, Joe Nathan, a lot of Joes, Jose Reyes, David Wright, and Chase Utley. So good pitchers there, and not only starters but relievers,

and not only relievers but starters yeah although uh not that's not the whole roster we don't i would actually let's see 2006 roster japan chris young went now see that's a person the tall one the tall chris young okay that's a person who i might have expected right uh let's see love looking up stuff on the internet rosters major leaguers i'm going to give you the whole roster okay bronson arroyo eric bedard who was good at the time chris capuano uh brian fuentes clay hensley clay hensley ray king john lackey john main mike myers joe nathan scott shields tall chris young kenji Jojima. That's an interesting one, I guess.

I mean, it's interesting for, I guess, I guess that's what they do. If Japanese major leaguers go as Americans, then it's not interesting at all. Joe Maurer, Brian Schneider, Ryan Howard, Lyle Overbay, Chase Utley, Tad Iguchi, Raphael Fricall, Jose Reyes, David Wright, Jermaine Dye, Sean Figgins, Bill Hall, Andrew Jones. So is there anything that links those players? Is there any type of player? I mean, those are not all smiling overachiever types. They're not anything.

They're not all old. They're not all young. They're not not anything. They're not all old. They're not all young. They're not all rich. They're not all anything. I guess they skew. They're pretty much all veterans. Who's the youngest here? Maybe Clay Hensley is the youngest.

Joe Maurer was the young at the time. All these guys were younger, Howard and Utley. But a lot of veterans. I don't know. I guess they're the players who most loved baseball. Yeah, could be that. Lackey probably just ate at McDonald's every day. Okay.

I just Googled Ray King Japan to see what I could find, and I found a diary entry at MLB.com from Ray King from a previous trip to Japan. He made a trip to Japan in 2004, and he complimented the taxis, which were excellent and clean, and the shopping areas, which were also well kept. And he says that if he were asked to go again, he would consider it. Clearly he did. He sure did. It's great that that's still on the internet. So the other news that I wanted to mention, someone in the Facebook group did some play indexing. And as I mentioned recently,

I like to highlight the play indexing that those of you who have subscribed to the play index using the coupon code BP have done and presented in that Facebook group. So do you want to read and discuss this? Yeah, the question was, or the suggestion was from Steve, if I'm using the Play Index correctly, it looks like David Price today may have been the first ever to lose a complete game one hitter while allowing no walks and no home runs. Someone check my work. In fact, it is true. And not only is it true, but that actually, I would say, undersells it. He is the first pitcher ever to lose a complete game with one base runner.

Nobody has ever hit or walk or home run. Doesn't even matter. One base runner has never happened before. Unless you're counting Dick Drago, who did it in a four-inning complete game, which I don't count. I'm not counting. I wouldn't count that. So a lot of two-base runner ones, but this is the greatest, maybe the greatest loss ever pitched. Pretty interesting. Unearned run as well.

Mm-hmm. Good find, Steve. Mm-hmm. Brandon McCarthy also pitched very well today. Four-hit shutout, and he shut out the Astros in 107 pitches and two hours and seven minutes. Jim Maloney, this might be the best loss. I mean, it depends. If we're counting extra inning games, then you go to the 16-inning 0-0 game

between, I think, the Giants and the Mets or whatever. But Jim Maloney in 1965 threw an 11-inning complete game, three base runners, 18 strikeouts. So that might be the best ever. Not bad. Not bad at all. Okay. James Shields in 2012, two base runners, both hits, 15 strikeouts. But one of the hits was a home run.

All right, good play index research from Steve. And I'm glad that McCarthy has pitched well for the Yankees because he's made us look smart for touting him as a trade target when he had a five-something ERA. Okay, so anything else you want to discuss? No. Okay. So today I want to revisit a topic from much earlier in the season

and discuss some recent developments. So on April 10th, we did a podcast, episode 425. We talked about the costliest injuries that teams had suffered so far and we tried to we tried to look at all the injuries that that had happened to that point and there had been quite a few many Tommy John surgeries and other injuries and we tried to project which of those injuries would end up being decisive somehow. That at the end of the year, a certain player who was hurt could conceivably, one could argue, have made the difference between his team making the playoffs and not making the playoffs, or winning the division and winning the

wildcard. And so we went through all of the major injuries at that time. And at the end of the episode, we each picked two. We kind of had one primary one, and we did two. We made it into a bet or a contest of sorts. And do you recall who you picked? Yes, I think I picked Chris Medlin. You did? You went with Medlin? I think you picked what?

You picked Matt Moore? Yeah, sort of of so medlin was your was your pick of the heart and and derrick holland was your pick of the brain i was trying to remember who the rangers one was yeah i thought there was a rangers one up there yeah yeah um but you said at the time that you didn't really buy the r as a team, not even because of all the injuries, but you just didn't buy them as a contender in the first place. That's impressive. Yes, it is. So you said that, and you said that the Braves, you figured that they would

be in a position to possibly miss the playoffs because of Medlin, and we talked a little bit about how to divide the loss, because of course they lost medlin and they lost beachy but then they signed santana and so we were talking about how you would apportion the loss to medlin but but you went with medlin and and holland as a secondary pick and then i went with more who at the time we weren't sure how severe more's injury was we it wasn't clear that he was going to have Tommy John and miss the rest of the year but I gambled and rolled the dice that he would and he did and then my

secondary pick was Josh Hamilton who was supposed to miss a couple months for the Angels so those picks some of those picks look okay at this point, look pretty good Medlin certainly looks good. The Braves now, if I can pull the standings up,

they're currently about a Medlin away from a playoff spot, I think. Let's see, they are, as we record this on Thursday, they are one and a half games behind the Giants for the second wildcard slot. So that's a meddling margin. So that's a good pick. And of course, Holland, your heart wasn't really in that pick anyway. It's hard to pick just one Ranger injury because they've had an incredible amount. amount. And as for my picks, the Rays are seven games out of a playoff spot right now, so they are not a more away. You could make the case that maybe if they had had more the whole season, things would have been a little different. I don't know whether they would have been more likely to trade price or less likely to trade price.

Ben, this whole thing is starting to sound like an MLB.com headline. You're right. So I don't know how that would have altered history. Maybe they would have been

buyers at the deadline if they'd had more and been a few games closer. Who knows? But as things... Maybe they would have been Brandon Guyers at the deadline.

Now I can't get out of the... I can't get out of the rhythm now. It's all MLB headlines in my head. It's just like I'm Neo and they're just everywhere. So as things stand, Moore is unlikely to be the difference between a raised playoff spot and not but hamilton you could make the case is or at least to make the make the difference between a division title and a wild card win the angels as we talk about this are a game and a half up on the a's and hamilton was out for quite a while and he hasn't been great obviously since, since he got back. But if we assume that, I don't know, he would play like typical Josh Hamilton or that he would have over that period,

the Angels were going with Grant Green and Efren Navarro and J.B. Shuck, some of whom were okay, some of whom were not so good. Hamilton almost certainly would have been better. So that's a decent pick. That could still be an okay pick. But I want to revisit this now, in part because of an Angels injury. And that's the injury to Garrett Richards, which the news broke shortly before we started recording, that it is as bad as everyone feared as he was lying on the ground on Wednesday after hurting his knee. He has a torn patellar tendon in his left knee. He's going to have to have surgery. The surgery could keep him out even into the

beginning of next season. So this is a pretty crushing blow. is this is a a strong contender i think for for injury of the year in that the angels have already lost tyler skaggs this month to tommy john surgery the rest of the rotation is really really shaky jared weaver has not pitched well lately cj wilson has not really pitched well at all and then you're into guys like Matt Shoemaker, who I guess has been better than anyone expected Matt Shoemaker to be, but he's still Matt Shoemaker. And then there's Hector Santiago and Wade LeBlanc, who will probably fill in for Garrett Richards.

So this one hurts a lot for Angels fans. They are, you know, it's only six or seven starts. So the difference from Richards, who at least this year has been one of the best pitchers in baseball, to Wade LeBlanc is a very big drop. But over six or seven starts, you know, it could only be a win or so. So if it's a win, though, that is significant because the A's and the Angels right now are projected to finish with essentially identical records. So take Garrett Richards away and take a win away. And that could be very costly, especially because it might mean that the Angels end up playing the wild card game. And if they do play in the wild card game, they are almost certain, I would say, to be the underdogs in that game

because any team they're likely to face in that game would have a better starter available probably than the Angels would have because they won't have Richards for that game and they don't really have anyone of Richards' caliber for that game. So this is... The wild card game is on Tuesday? I don't know. Well, Richard's caliber for that game. So this is... The wildcard game is on Tuesday? I don't know. Well, let's assume it's Tuesday.

How many pitchers are available for that game? Randomly, how many pitchers from a team's staff are available? The guy who pitched Sunday is not. The guy who pitched Saturday is not. The guy who pitched Friday would be on short rest. And so you could argue about whether that counts or not. So there's only a 40%, maybe 60% chance that the team's ace is available. True.

Anyway. So it's significant, but it's not necessarily significant. And you've got your bullpen on call, the whole crew. Yes, and they have traded for lots and lots of relievers this year, which I've speculated before could be with an eye toward the wild card game, perhaps. Can I ask you something real quick? Yeah. Because you've been talking about it mainly from the regular season perspective.

Imagine that a genie appeared to the Angels right now and said, we will give you Garrett Richards back, but you may only have him for the regular season or for the postseason, and he will be injured for the other. Which do you think today, which do you think they take? I guess I'd say postseason. I think so too. Yeah, because they are...

Because of where they are in their standings, partly because at this point, I mean, it might only be one start in the postseason, but it could very easily still be six starts in the postseason, too. Yeah. And the Angels did acquire Gordon Beckham today. But they probably didn't. Is that true? Yeah.

Wow. They probably didn't use this thing a whole lot because he's not a very good starting pitcher. So he's not a very good second baseman either. He might be better? Maybe. So I want to revisit this most pivotal or most serious injury of the season topic now that whatever it is has almost certainly happened? Because I think it's probably rare that the most pivotal injury of the season would happen

this late in the season. Because of course, you need this perfect storm of a team that's in a very close race and a really good player getting hurt and a really weak replacement for that player. And also usually that player missing a lot of time because, uh, because, because it's baseball and because the best players on a baseball team don't really account for that high a share of, of any team's wins. So you need months for, for these things to show up or, you know, it could show up, I guess, in one day if it happens to be the right day. But usually I would think the most serious injury of the season would be one that happened earlier in the season that is hurting

the team for many months. Whereas this one will only hurt a team for, for five weeks or so for six or seven starts. But potentially because of how good Richards is and because of where the Angels are and because of who will be starting in place of Richards, you could make a case that it could be Richards. But if it's not Richards, what is it? And I am writing about this for Grantland for today, and it'll be up at some point today, and I'll put a link in places where you'll find it. But I wonder what you think, what you would say is the most pivotal, because it's likely that whatever the most pivotal will be at the end of the season has already happened. So I've got some contenders here i can go through unless you have you have some off the top of your head uh the first name that comes to me and this

might not be the right one but the first name that comes to me is jose fernandez uh uh yeah the marlins are i think four games back right now of the wild card. And... That's about a Fernandez. Yeah, it's close to a Fernandez. And they have been fairly aggressive, or they've sounded like a fairly aggressive buyer without making huge moves. So maybe if they had had Fernandez,

maybe they would have done something more. So it's possible. The second name that comes to mind is Yadier Molina. Yes, I think that's a very strong contender. And the third name that comes to mind, although probably too far and too late uh but Tanaka yeah I think I think Tanaka is a legitimate one because the the Yankees are where are they now they're I think they're the wild card second they're four games out uh three and a half games behind the Mariners and Tanaka has been out since I think the first week of July or so and it's looking at least a little more likely like that he might come back for September although it it wouldn't

surprise anyone I don't think if he suddenly had a setback and was done for the year but even if he were to come back say in a couple weeks he still would have missed two months or close to two months. And given how well he's pitched, that's pretty significant. Of course, the Yankees have also traded for Brandon McCarthy and he's pitched fantastically. Maybe they would have made that move anyway because they've also been missing other starting pitchers. Sabathia, who maybe wouldn't have pitched all that well anyway. Pineda, who no one was really expecting to stay healthy. And then Ivan Nova, which just about a full season of Ivan Nova is pretty significant,

perhaps. The fourth name that comes to mind is Jared Parker, who neither of us has ever been huge fans of, but given where the A's are and given the fact that they saw their rotation as an area they need to upgrade, I don't know that I actually, I didn't really feel like their rotation was necessarily an area to upgrade, but they did. So maybe Jared Parker is one of the guys from the initial discussion that we can now look at a little differently knowing where the A's stand. And then a fifth and a sixth. One who we didn't mention, I don't think, at the time, although it maybe arguably looks more significant now, is Marco Scudero. Yeah.

And the last one would be related to that, Brandon Belt. Yes. And perhaps Matt Cain. Perhaps Matt Cain. I do have Scudero on my list just because of how much time he's missed and how bad his replacements have been. I think he's in the conversation, certainly. As for the A's, you could put A.J. Griffin almost on the same level as Parker. Their projections were similar coming into the year.

And the thing about the A's, and I'm still deciding whether to include them or not, is that the A's might end up in the same place that they would have if they had had Griffin and Parker but in a butterfly flapping its wings sense of something happening and causing other things to happen those injuries maybe either one or both probably the most significant of the season in what they have caused to happen like the A's, because they traded for Samarja and Hamill and Lester and made all of these subsequent moves to improve their rotation, maybe where they'll end up is where they would have ended up if they had had Parker and or Griffin and had not made any moves.

But because they made those moves, they now won't have Addison Russell in the future and the Cubs will have Addison Russell and John Lester went to them instead of to another team and so all of these all these things happened as a result of those injuries that might or might not show up in the standings but in terms of how the season played out they were certainly among the most pivotal it's hard to I think it would be hard to argue that either, since we're talking about them one at a time in isolation, not as a group, it's hard to argue that either one of them would have been better as a starter than Jesse Chavez.

True. And in a way, it's also, even though Chavez has been very good this year as a starter, it's also hard to project that he would have been, because he would have been in the bullpen otherwise and like there's nothing about his past that would make you go oh yeah but they wouldn't have had him in the bullpen because he was just sort of a bland extra arm in the bullpen uh before this so yep yeah so uh Molina as you mentioned is a good one he's missed a lot of time and he's been replaced by Tony Cruz and AJ Pruszynski and George Kataris and people who are nowhere near as good as Yadier Molina. And the Cardinals, of course,

are in a position where that makes a big difference. And let's see who else is on my list. So maybe Michael Waka should be on that list also for similar reasons i mean same team and and also and also similar to the a's uh led to you know led to moves that will cost them in in other ways especially because those moves while kelly and and craig weren't contributing a whole lot at the time uh you know those were moves that took away from their big league roster as well. So, as we talked about, it was hard for them to necessarily even make big upgrades because they subtracted from their big league roster to do them. How about...

But how many... I mean, how many... I feel like Waka's missed like six starts. How much has Waka missed? Let's see. When was the last time? I mean, he will miss more. Yeah. Okay, so 15.

He's got 15. So, yeah, half a season. He'll miss more than half a season. So that's pretty big. That is pretty big. And who else? Oh, well, how about there are some Mariners who missed time that could potentially be on here. There are some Mariners who missed time that could potentially be on here.

Maybe James Paxton, given how well he has pitched since he came back, and he missed quite a bit of time. So that's an option. I guess that would be, if you were going to pick a Mariner starter, it would be him probably and not Iwakuma, who missed some time at the start of the season, and Walker, who missed some time at the start of the season, and Walker, who missed some time, but even since he returned, hasn't really contributed, hasn't really pitched for them. And it feels like maybe a Blue Jay should be on here somewhere,

and that they've had a lot of injuries, but I don't know whether any one of them, like Encarnacion, Lind, Rasmus, Laurie, Reyes, is Turris missing the whole season? I don't know whether in concert those were pretty damaging to them. I don't know whether any individual one of them rises to the level of the ones we've talked about. If the Dodgers were to miss by even three games i mean they're not going to but if they were you could almost say that kershaw yeah might have i mean kershaw in a month is

probably not worth three wins but he he might be like you never know any month that he pitches could be yeah how about how about sean figgins you could make the case that if he hadn't he hadn't missed that time you could make the case the giants he hadn't missed that time, you could make the case the Giants would really be right in this thing. Yes, true. You're right. Yeah, maybe there's a reverse thing where being healthy was, I don't know. You could extend, this does not count for the, I wouldn't think this would count for the terms that we're using, but you might speculate that Justin Verlander is the most yeah injury of any team if you consider him injured

all year right i was thinking of that and also justin masterson who maybe falls into that category of like kind of maybe nick swisher i mean yes if you think nick swisher's knees are the reason that he's the worst player in baseball this year? That's like a four-win swing, basically. Yeah, that's a big one, and now he's not playing at all. So that's one. Garrett Cole missed quite a bit of time. I guess he missed most of June with the shoulder thing, and then he came back and then almost immediately went back on the DL

for all of July and most of August. So that's significant. And I guess if you're going to put Kershaw in, you could also mention Hanley and Uribe, but probably the Dodgers are not the best pick, are not in the best position to have a candidate. Right. And neither one of those guys would be the one you, I mean... I mean, neither one is on the same level as losing Chris Medlin for an entire year. No. But yeah, you're right. Verlander, if we assume that there's something not right with Verlander

that could count as an injury, then having Verlander, if the Royals actually pull this thing off, or even if they don't, just having to trade for price, which is probably not something that would have happened with a healthy ace-like Justin Verlander. That changes things quite a bit. And then the only other ones I put on my before first cut list were some of the Reds who missed time, particularly Joey Votto not playing up to his usual level and then missing a ton of time.

And Matt Latos missed some time and everything. But the Reds are, at this point, far enough out that that would probably not have made the difference. So who you got? Who's your three? Who's your top three? My three. All right.

I'll go with Molina and Richards. And let's see. How far out are the Pirates right now? Pirates are close. We're only counting regular season, right? Right. Okay. Yeah.

I'll take, I guess I'll go with, I'll steal your preseason pick and go with Medlin for my third guy. I'm going Scudero number three, Medlin number two, and Jose Fernandez number one. And I think that Jose Fernandez, to me, you have to add an extra game, because I think that if the Marlins were indeed in, you know, basically a tie for a wildcard spot, they would have made a move at the deadline that would have, you know, reasonably added one more win. Yes, I think that's reasonable too. Okay, so that's our second attempt at this topic and we know more than we did the first time we talked about it. Yeah, Ben, I also know more than I did

the first time we talked about Japanese rosters because I've been playing around. And I have the 2004 rosters. Okay. And so this is Kiko Calero, Roger Clemens, Kaz Ishii,

Ray King, Scott Leinbrink, Kyle Loesch, Jason Marquis, Aki Otsuka, Jake Peavy, Mark Redman, Chris Reitzma, Frankie Rodriguez, Scott Shields, Dontrell Willis, Johnny Estrada, Victor Martinez, Hank Blaylock, Alex Cora, Marcus Giles, David Ortiz, Jack Wilson, Michael Young, Moises Alou, Miguel Cabrera, Carl Crawford, Manny Ramirez, Vernon Wells, Brad Wilkerson. So that's actually an extremely good team. And Ramirez and Ortiz had just won the World Series. And then they went traveling. So this is not apparently a very hard sell.

I mean, they probably signed up before they knew they'd won the World Series. But I imagine that they could have used some of that new World Series pull to get out of it. And at the time, it's hard to put these guys' careers just right in the right time, but basically, Peavy, Willis, and Clemens were like three of the eight best pitchers in the game at that point, right? That was Clemens with the Astros when he had like the 1.7 ERA. And then, yeah, Peavy and Willis. I think that was Willis's like 22 win season or whatever. And then,

of course, Frankie Rodriguez at the time was, you know, maybe like the second best closer in the game. So you can do better than we thought. I wonder whether you still can, because this is a new era with more Tommy John hysteria than there used to be. And there were those recommendations from ASMI that came out at some point this year that basically advised pitchers not to pitch once the season was over. So I wonder whether we'll see pitchers and their teams be more reluctant for that to happen this time around. pitchers and their teams be more reluctant for that to happen this time around? Yeah, it's a 14-man staff for a five-game series, but of course you've got to keep throwing to stay in shape, so it's not as though you're only throwing three innings or whatever that divides out to. You've got to keep throwing through November.

Okay, so that's it for today. That's it for this week. Please support our sponsor, Baseball Reference, by going to baseballreference.com, using the coupon code BP to sign up for a year of Play Index at the discounted price of $30. Please join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectivelywild. And please rate and review and subscribe to the show on iTunes. Clemens won the Cy Young that year. Yeah, that's true. And he's Roger Clemens. Mm-hmm.

I guess he just wanted a free trip to Japan. Yeah, I think I might be a year early and a year late on PV and Willis for them to be at that level. But regardless. Okay. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone. We will be back on Monday. You want to start? No.

Why would I? Why would I start?