Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 598: The A’s, Rebuilding, and Ben Zobrist

Episode Date: January 12, 2015

Ben and Sam banter about Ryan Lavarnway and Billy Beane fan fiction, then discuss the Ben Zobrist trade.

Celeste, I know you're a dreamer, and I know you like to live in your head, but what in your wildest dreams would make you think, I would leave my firm, one of the most prestigious in Chicago, to come work for what is basically a startup? Because I have the one thing I know you want. What? Can't even guess?

I can't even begin to guess. I'm happy where I am. Baseball commissioner. It's the one thing George W. Bush wanted more than the presidency. Don't play games with me. I'm not. The league's our biggest client. The commissioner's getting on in years. He needs a successor.

The successor's going to come from our firm. You know baseball. You know the law. Good morning and welcome to episode 598 of Effectively Wild, You know baseball. You know the law. rating two years ago to minus 24 last year. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg of Grantland. Hi, Ben. Hi. What do you think about that? Can't tell you why he went from plus whatever it was to minus whatever it was, which I was trying to find out as I was just writing about him earlier. Do you have at least a hypothesis other than one-year fluke the uh old the old effectively wild standby yep i cautiously confident that he was worse at defense uh by fielding runs above average which

is uh baseball prospectus uh defensive metric he went from plus six to minus 14 so that is not quite a 40 run drop but it is a 20 run drop if you're paying close attention. His rating in the fan scouting report barely changed. I don't know what that means. It's only like it's 25 people who voted on what they thought

UNL Escobar looked like last year. But often that tracks with the stats possibly because it's influenced by the stats, maybe not. By UZR from plus 11 to minus 11. He was two wins below average and one win below Derek Jeter, which is worse, I think. I like the fan scouting report a lot.

I also think, though, that when I have filled it out, which I do every year, I fill it out for whichever team I followed most closely. It is like the hardest thing in the world to distance myself from what I already know the numbers to say. Yeah. It is very difficult. And so I would guess,'s just a hypothesis without having checked this i would guess that there is at best a one-year lag for uh players doing poorly so like i would guess that you know escobar's stats next year might be quite a bit worse uh in the defensive

uh in the fans scouting report could be i don't know i don't know just hypothesis no evidence no no research whatsoever very reliably plus defensive before that yeah well our friend rj anderson says that he looked slower when he was watching the race as he does last year could be rj's fault so could be RJ was watching. Observer bias somehow. All right. So do you have any banter before we get back to what we were just saying? Well, Ryan LaVarnway was designated for assignment again. We haven't talked about that.

I don't understand. Is that a thing that we talk about? We once talked about Casper wells being designated for assignment by a bunch of teams what was it two off seasons ago and now lavarne way is the new casper wells so he was over the weekend dfa'd by yet another team his fourth team of the offseason so he was dfa'd by the red sox claimed by the dodgers d, claimed by the Dodgers, DFA'd by the Dodgers, claimed by the Cubs, waved by the Cubs, claimed by the Orioles, DFA'd by the Orioles. Wow. An eventful offseason for him.

Yeah, not inconsequential teams either. The Cubs, Red Sox, and Dodgers are like three of the five teams with the richest baseball history. He's really had a tour of – Now he's part of it. Yeah, he is. So he'll get it. Let's see. So the Red Sox were the starting one, right?

Yes. But they DFA'd him or they traded him? All of these are DFAs? Yeah, I don't know if any of the DFAs were followed by trades. Let me see. I think not. Yeah, selected off waivers. They're all selected off waivers.

So he'll get a fifth team. And the first one was December 5th. So these have all happened in the last month and a week. So in just 35 days, 37 days, he has been on four teams. And we'll be on a fifth any day now.

You want to show we do a quick one? Who ends up with Ryan LaVarnley? I have one. I've got it. I'll say the Giants. Okay. It's like hot potato.

No one wants to get stuck with him. The Orioles seem like a team that would, I guess the Orioles pick up in DFA more players than anybody, so in that sense it makes sense. They're not a team that you would immediately think would be interested in a spare third baseman, but it makes sense, sure. Yeah. Well, maybe they'll bring

him back. They DFA'd Steve Pierce, right, and they brought him back. Alright, well, Ryan LaVarnway, welcome to Effectively Wild's Hall of Inside Jokes. Yep. Once you enter, you never leave. Mm-hmm.

All right, anything else? Oh, I just discovered that erotic Billy Bean fan fiction exists. Send it. I don't really want to talk about that. Send it, send it, send it. Do you want to just read it in real time? I would say though that erotic Billy Bean fan fiction would have to

refer to him as William Bean. I don't think you can be erotic about a man named Billy. I think it would have to be William Bean. William Bean. Well, I was writing a line about... Bean Billy. No, not Bean Billy. Send it.

Okay, I will send it in a second. I've got to find it again. I had closed it and hoped never to see it again. Was this a Reddit find? No, I was writing a reaction to the Zobris trade, and I had a line about how the A's acquiring Zobris seemed like something that you would see in like bad Billy Bean fan fiction

or something like he's the most predictable A's player that like the most likely guy to have been on the A's who had never been on the A's oh my gosh relationship Billy Bean Theo Epstein you buried the lead this is Theo Epstein. You buried the lead.

This is Theo Epstein erotic fan fiction. It's both at the same time. So I Googled Billy Bean fan fiction just to see. And by the way, no one, if you're listening at work, don't Google Billy Bean fan fiction from a shared computer. Wait till you get home, somewhere where you can erase your browser history and not have it monitored by someone in it but it is uh it's an opus it's longer than

anything i've ever written it's over 33 000 words oh my word pasted it into a word document and it was 93 pages long oh my goodness And it gets pretty steamy. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Hang on. I'm going to just control F a few words. Oh, there it is.

It'll be there. There it is. Oh, there it is. It's there. It's there 25 times. Oh my gosh. There it is. I didn't think that word would be there.

And there it is. All the words are there. Wow. Let't think that word would be there and there it is all the way there it is wow let me this won't be there nope it's not there's like like peter peter woodfork is in there it's like the guy who works for the commissioner's office i don't know wait wait a guy named peter Wood Fork would be in an erotic fan fiction about two GMs. Yeah, I guess so. Well, he's often mentioned as a GM candidate, but it's based on the comments, it was very well received. I'm not even going to double entendre a response to that. Wow, this is filthy.

Quite a find. It is filthy. I do like that it does show appreciation for the sensuality of coffee. I also find my morning coffee to be very sensual. You know what I like about this is that it works the transactions

that each GM makes into the narrative. It just will suddenly have a transaction log. It's clearly written by someone who is quite knowledgeable about baseball. Yeah, it is. God, this is amazing. Wow. Yeah.

Eric Chavez beat up Billy Bean in this fanfiction really oh you didn't read the whole thing no I would have needed the whole day let's see I want to see how many times this word appears 25 times that's the word I figured you were checking

and there's a synonym of that word that appears like 7 times another one that's yeah yeah of that word that appears like seven times. There are thousands of cinnamons. Another one that's... Yeah. Yeah. All right. Done.

Forever. Okay. So, where were we? Right here. Wow. I don't know. I don't know I don't know I'm not ready to move on

Alright closing this tab Done it's closed Closing this chat window Closing this Skype What number are we on? 598 Good morning and welcome to episode 598 of Effectively Wild A baby podcast in baseball

Brought to you by the Planet In Action Baseball Reference. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg of Antlin. Hi, Ben. How are you? Hey there. Any banter? Nope. Let's go straight to the topic. All right. Oh, my gosh. The topic is Billy Bean. Oh, what do you know? Pure know purely strictly his on-field transactions uh so uh no

seriously though we uh we should talk about this trade because this is in a way i guess if you're if you're stat head dogmatic you might say this is the biggest trade of the offseason right uh You might say this is the biggest trade of the offseason, right? In the sense that there's like two stat head teams and a stat head player. I was going to say in the sense that Zobrist is the best player who's been traded. But now that I think about it, Josh Dahlmanson would be a bigger deal anyway. But Zobrist has been kind of a top 10, top 15 player over the last five years. You don't expect players like that.

Top two, top three over the last six years. Possibly, which is part of the conversation, I guess. And so he got traded. Just in case you haven't been following, the Oakland A's acquired Ben Zobrist and Yunel Escobar for John Jaso, Daniel Robertson, and Herschel Moog Powell, as well as cash considerations. Did this trade change? Let me rephrase this. Clearly, this trade changes what you think about the A's offseason. Does it change what you think about the A's offseason. Does it change what you think about the A's offseason up to that point? I kind of always assumed that at some point what the A's were doing would become clear and that it would be this. I mean, I figured after the Donaldson deal,

which was confusing in isolation, that it was a prelude to other deals that would return the A's to somewhere close to contention Why? Why? Why? Why wouldn't they just keep Josh Donaldson? Well, I sort of understood trading Donaldson I didn't know whether they got enough back for him But just in the sense that he's coming off a couple great years. He's older than you would think Donaldson would be. He's a super two. He's going to start getting expensive in arbitration

and then even more expensive thereafter. We talked about this at the time. I know, but we did. But he's also much younger than Zobrist, and super two is much better than 7 years of service time and 1 year until free agency. I mean there's nothing Sort of except Zobrist is only making 7.5 million.

Yeah but Donaldson is making less than that this year. Like everything that you would say about Zobrist for this year Donaldson is better than that. I mean I'm not saying like there's nothing wrong with trading one player for a bunch of stuff and then trading a bunch of stuff and then trading a bunch of stuff for a player if each of those moves contains within it

profit, but there's nothing about Ben Zobris that is more appealing than Josh Donaldson, right? No. So the question still comes back to why would they trade Josh Donaldson unless you think profit in each move. Do you think there was, looking back, do you think there was profit in the Josh Donaldson move? In isolation, no, but they did save some money on it,

and they got a shortstop who maybe made them more comfortable about trading Robertson in this deal. So it sort of fits in. I mean, this one move is not at all surprising, I don't think. Like if the A's had made this Zobrist-Escobar trade the day after the World Series, it still would have been a big deal because it's a big player. But it wouldn't have been surprising at all that the A's entered the offseason with no middle infield, essentially. They kind of needed

a second baseman and a shortstop. They've been connected to both of these players before. They claimed Escobar on waivers last year, didn't end up getting him, but talked about getting him. And they've been connected to Zobrist in the past. And there's no more A's suitable player than Ben Zobrist for many reasons. He fits like every stereotype that you could make about an A's player. He plays every position, and he switch hits, and he walks a lot. He does all the A's things. Loves to pay for his own sodas.ous ace stereotype Bends over to just constantly walking around Buying soda Doesn't even drink soda maybe

Just likes to give money in the machines Likes the mechanics of it So if they had made this move Without those other moves happening I don't think this would have surprised anyone We would have just assumed Well the A's were a good team And they're still planning to be a good team and they've been trading prospects for veterans for

years now this is what they do they just traded a better shortstop prospect less than six months ago so no one would be surprised that they just traded another pretty good shortstop prospect so it's only surprising in that they've kind of zigged and zagged and they've looked like a seller at some points and a buyer at other points. And so now there's this move that is clearly focused on 2015. And it's like a throwback to their old moves that they started making before the recent moves that were kind of confusing. Throwback to, what do you mean by throwback? It's like a throwback to their moves that they were making before the recent ones. Yeah, trading prospects or veterans.

Although never anybody as good as Zobrist. I mean, Zobrist is the best player. Well, they traded for Leicester. Yeah, they traded for Leicester, but A, Zobrist is probably best player. Well, they traded for Lester. Yeah, they traded for Lester. But A, Zobrist is probably better than Lester. And B, yeah, I guess you could say they traded for Lester. But I think you could maybe argue that Zobrist is the best player that Billy Bean has ever acquired that was not drafted by Billy Bean. So in that sense, it's a little bit new.

But you're right. This is what they've done. They've basically traded every prospect they've had over the last three years for players who are pre-free agency. Zobris is the closest to free agency of that group, but nonetheless he is way underpaid, way underpaid, because even though he is one year away from free agency, he is under a long extension that he signed that included a bunch of club options, and as is Tampa Bay's tendency, those club options were extremely friendly to the club.

That contract is amazing. Oh, my gosh. People talk about the LaGoria contract all the time. People talk about Matt Moore's contract. This was even better. I know. Four years ago, I remember thinking the Rays are never going to lose because they had that Longoria deal and the Zobrist deal.

The Zobrist deal is incredible. Zobrist signed this extension in April of 2010, a five-year extension. And that was after his 2009 year, which was his best season. He was like an eight or nine- win player that year, something like that. And then he signs this deal that has paid him like five million a year ever since then. Seven million last year, seven and a half this coming year. It's incredible. It really is incredible.

I wonder why. I don't know. Everyone has always underrated Ben Zobris, right? So maybe he's underrated himself. Maybe he looked at his numbers and thought he wasn't very good. It's actually, so the first year was only, he was making the minimum. The first year of this deal, he was making the minimum. Although you're right, on average it's five million.

Alan Nero, a real agent too. Like this is not one of those ones where you can say, oh well, blame it on the agent. Because there is that kind of accusation that when some of these guys sign the deals, the agent is just sort of half afraid of losing his client to a bigger agent. Alan Nero is the bigger agent. So what were we talking about? Billy Bean. Oh yeah. So okay. So let me ask you this then. Does the Brandon Moss deal look better or worse to you now that you've

seen the Ben Zobrist deal or equal? I mean, I don't know. The Samarja and Moss deals never really bothered me or seemed all that unexpected. I mean, the A's have always traded guys who were approaching free agency to get salary relief and prospects, and they seemed to get a good deal back for Samarja. And Moss was going to make, I don't remember, Sobrist money or more for a lot less production. So I didn't think that was all that strange. The stranger thing was Donaldson, who's their best player, and a guy who's four years away from free agency, and then Derek Norris, who is younger than Donaldson and cheaper than Donaldson and just as far away from free agency.

Those were the weird ones, I thought. Yeah, I was going to get to those too, but you jumped in. Okay, so I think as I recall, and I don't recall all that well, but I think as I recall, my take was a bit hotter than yours. I think I found the A's suite of moves to have been very dispiriting because they seemed like a really good team that had torn down. And while I didn't begrudge them that or blame them for that because I assume they have to do what they have to do, it struck me as depressing that a team that seemed to be this good would have to, because of financial reasons and structural inequalities, have to do this

thing to tear down a team that I frankly enjoyed quite a bit. Do you think that I was too quick on the draw to make that conclusion? Was this, in fact, an offseason dedicated to getting better? Or is it still fair to say that they did get somewhat worse i think they got a little bit worse but i think they also got a little bit cheaper and a little bit younger and a little bit deeper in some ways and possibly a little more future proofproof. So I think they did get a little bit worse. I don't think the team that they had entering the offseason was really a lock for anything,

assuming that they weren't going to bring back Lester and Gregerson and Lowry and all their free agents. I didn't think... Yeah, Hamill. I didn't think they were that much better then than they are now. I think in my piece I added up, I just did a table where I took the five prominent guys that they've traded and the five prominent guys that they've traded for. prominent guys that they've traded for.

And when you add it up, the guys who they traded were 12 team control years. The guy that they traded for are 14. The average age of the out guys is 29.4. Average age of the in guys is 28.6. The salary of the in guys is about 6 million less. And the projected win total of the in-guys is about 1.5 wins less or fewer.

So... And that doesn't... For this year or for all... That's for 2015. The win total at least. And that doesn't even count all of the other sort of depth enhancing stuff that they did all of the

back of the rotation like Tommy Malone Drew Pomeranz types Flagler or whatever his name is oh Fegley Fegley and Braveman and Sean Nolan and Joe Wendell and Flagler yeah I can't forget him Yes. Graveman. And Sean Nolan. Sean Nolan. And Joe Wendell.

And Flagerly. Yeah, I can't forget him. All those guys that... Bassett. Yes, Chris Bassett. Naming them all. Did you count... Did you count... So who were the five that you counted?

Five out were Donaldson, Samarja, Moss, Norris, and Jaso. And five in were Zobris, Laurie, Ike Davis, who was actually purchased. I don't know whether that's technically a trade or not. I wouldn't include him. You would include him? I would not. Okay. Well, I did.

And two other guys, Simeon and Escobar. Okay. So all the guys we named, Fagley and the rest, and also Joe Wendell, are all in. I'm just trying to now get a sense of who the group of depth and or prospect guys coming in and out are. All the guys you named plus Wendell and I honestly don't

remember who they got for Derek Norris. I'm just going to say Casey Kelly because he was a padre. They got RJ Alvarez and Jesse Hahn. Yes. And so they got those guys. And they got, of course, Barreto, who's either the best or the youngest, however you want to phrase it, of the bunch. And in exchange, as far as youth that they gave up,

they gave up Robertson. Yeah. They gave up Boog, Herschel, Powell. And did they give up any other young guys? Michael and Noah. Yeah, and Noah went somewhere. And that's pretty much it. So you'd have to say that on the young side they win.

Yeah, I think so. So that's, I'll have to admit, Ben, that's pretty much it. So you'd have to say that on the young side they win. Yeah, I think so. And so that's, I'll have to admit, Ben, that's surprising to me. Because when you do add it up, it looks pretty good. It looks at least like a push. At least like a push. And you can understand the desire to do action after last year. And if you have a desire to do action and you end up no worse and potentially better, that's a solid offseason.

So I will reconsider my career. Okay. You could still quibble with some of the individual moves, I'm sure, if you want to still say that they didn't get enough for Donaldson. You could make that case if you want to say say that they didn't get enough for Donaldson, you can make that case. If you want to say that Billy Butler won't rebound or is a weird way to spend $30 million over three years, then maybe you can make that case too. You counted Jaso as an outgoing? I did, yeah.

And Jaso was very expendable after the Butler signing because at this point his concussions, I would imagine, will keep him from catching. So he's a DH and they didn't need one anymore. And they've got lots of that depth that they love to have. I mean, they've got players, they've got multiple players for seemingly every position again. I don't even know where all these guys are going to play between Escobar and Zobrist and Simeon and I don't know who else. They've just got redundancy everywhere. So it seems like the overall strategy, which at times was kind of a mystery, has become clear, and they are still in the realm of contention. So I wonder whether this sort of thing is going to become more common,

because I wonder if maybe... This kind of thing being what? This sort of... Trading seven moves and 35 players moving just to get Younel Escobar shortstop. Because that's my theory. My theory is that they didn't have a shortstop, and they're like, how can we get a shortstop? They zeroed in on Younel Escobar, and then they did 35 red paperclip moves to turn nothing into Younel Escobar.

That might be. But, I mean, this kind of rebuilding strategy where you are not doing the tear down you are kind of doing this two-pronged balancing act rebuild where you are making present oriented transactions and you are also making future-oriented transactions at the same time. Like you're fighting a war on two fronts kind of, like today and tomorrow at the same time. And I wonder whether... That is the worst strategy.

Every general would tell you, you don't want to fight a war on two fronts. Right, but I wonder whether now you kind of do because you have this is going to bleed into what we talked about on friday with the 10 playoff team format but if you are in this situation where you know that you need 80 something wins to just be in contention and and someone brought up something which we probably didn't talk enough about on Friday and you mentioned it in your article

but how there's still considerable incentive to win your division it makes sense to try to win your division but I wonder whether it's still I mean having getting 80 somethingsomething wins,

even if that just makes you a wildcard contender, there's still more incentive to do that than there was before. You're still, if not guaranteed of a wildcard spot, you're at least close to guaranteed of contending and maybe keeping fans interested enough to keep coming to the ballpark down the stretch and and buying popcorn and watching you on tv and everything so maybe just getting to like 80 something is enough to avoid a depressing stretch at the end of the year where no one comes to your games and maybe that in itself is is valuable So Ben, I'm going to change the subject real quick

based on what you just said. I'm going to pivot. I'm going to segue. But before I do, Phil Ivey has unfollowed me. Oh, really? He has, yeah. Is he on an unfollowing binge? He only follows 500 people now

and one of them is Don Cheadle. Oh. I can't compete with that in fact almost uh at least half the people he follows have blue check marks yeah he followed me too i think i'm gonna do a retaliatory unfollow you do not. I never really wanted to follow Phil Ivey. I was just doing it to be nice.

All right. So let's segue, Ben. Okay. Because I want to ask you about the other team in this deal. Are they, what are they doing? Are they playing for 80 wins? Is this a trade that keeps them trade that sells off something for value? Because otherwise, the question I think some people have had is,

why get John Jaso otherwise? So are the Rays, what do you think the Rays fancy themselves this year? Because they've made, what, seven trades since Friedman left, and it seems like all of them have brought back a package that is, maybe this one a little bit less than the others, but even still a little bit, that is defined by kind of low ceiling, useful now sort of return guys that if you're if you're pessimistic or if you're ungenerous you might describe as depth or quad a or fourth outfielder types in a lot of cases if you're more generous you'd say guys who are going to contribute reliably without you know

not necessarily the sort of guys that you'd get if you were building for 2017 or 2018, but maybe you'd find them useful if you were building for 2015. Are the Rays building? Is building a verb that you can use to describe what the Rays are doing right now? I think it's not totally dissimilar from what the A's are doing. It seems like it's part of this same strategy. How can two broke teams that are almost identical in every way

have the same priorities and make a trade? Like why wouldn't Ben Zobrist fit on the Rays if he fits on the A's? They're the same team, the way you're describing him. Yeah, I don't know. It kind of doesn't make sense because the Rays just signed as Drupal Cabrera also, and he's just done a one-year deal, and then maybe they'd be ready to plug Daniel Robertson in, but you could also sort of say the same thing about the A's,

that they would have been, I guess they needed a stopgap. They needed someone for this year and didn't have one. And the Rays have Franklin. Yeah, the Rays have Franklin and Cabrera. So I guess that would be why. And the Rays have, I don't know, when was the last time the Rays had a productive DH? They never seem to be able to do that. So maybe JSO will be that for them.

But yeah, they've done the same sort of thing they traded will nyers which is just a that's a weird one that's as weird as donaldson and norris maybe weirder probably weirder than that um and yet they got suza back and they've got renee rivera back and They've got Rene Rivera Back a 31 year old Catcher was like one of the Centerpieces of that deal So I don't know It's sort of hard to say And when they traded Price they got

Franklin and Smiley A couple guys who were ready right away So seems to me that They are doing something similar Also so I wonder whether That will be more common And whether we just won't see so it seems to me that they are doing something similar also. So I wonder whether that will be more common and whether we just won't see any other teams embark on an Astros or Cubs style rebuild. Oh my gosh.

Two months and you're declaring the end of a trend? Two months, Ben? I'm just wondering. They're currently involved in it. But they started before the current playoff format. I'm not ready to declare the end of Astros and Cubs-ness, although it would be nice if they... It would be nice.

Yeah. All right. I thought it was a pretty good episode, considering we didn't have anything to add. Mm-hmm. Really. Well, we've done a few episodes on the A's this winter. considering we didn't have anything to add. Mm-hmm. Really. We've done a few episodes on the A's this winter.

I mean, they've forced us to reevaluate their offseason three or four times, so hopefully this will be the last time. What are the odds that Ben Zobrist gets traded? I read that somewhere, right, that as soon as the A's acquired Zbrist, a bunch of teams started Susan Slusser said that, yeah Yeah, I can't I mean I guess I wouldn't be shocked If Billy Bean traded anyone

But I would be pretty close to shocked If that happened I wrote about it Grant, if anyone wants to go read about that But I think we have Covered it fairly well End of the show Yeah. I wrote about it. Grant, if anyone wants to go read about that. But I think we have covered it fairly well. End of the show? Yeah.

I was just thinking about Billy Bean double entendre about every word you said. If you think of anything, you know. That's what she said. No? Is that not what she said No? Is that not what she said? I don't know why it would be Alright, so that's it for today Send us some emails for later In this week at

Podcasts at BaseballPerspectives.com Join the Facebook group at Facebook.com slash groups slash Effectively Wild Rate, review, and subscribe To the show on iTunes and support Our sponsor by going to BaseballReference.com and subscribing effectively wild rate review and subscribe to the show on iTunes and support our sponsor by going to baseballreference.com and subscribing to the play index using the coupon code BP.