Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 7: Duck

Episode Date: July 26, 2012

Ben and Sam examine how the Nationals have gone about implementing and publicizing Stephen Strasburg’s innings limit and revisit Billy Beane’s trades from last winter in light of Oakland’s success.

Good morning, and welcome to episode 7 of Effectively Wild, the Baseball Prospectus daily podcast. We've already done this thing for a week's worth of days, can you believe that, Sam Miller? I am Ben Lindberg in Manhattan, although by the time you're listening to this, I will be airborne and bound for British Columbia. And in his Honda Fit in Long Beach, California, my co-host is Sam Miller. Hi, Ben. Hello. So, what's your topic? My topic was going to be the A's and the trades they made this off-season. Okay. And I would like to talk about

Steven Strasburg, which I wanted to talk about last week and we didn't. And so I'm trying it again. I big footed you under the old format. Right. Which would you like to discuss first? We'll just do mine because I don't have much to say about it. Okay. I was just thinking about how the A's are unexpectedly in position to make the playoffs and how nice it would be if they had Gio Gonzalez on their team. And so I don't really have a fully formed opinion about this. I'm kind of forming it slowly as I go. But I wondered what your thoughts were about whether Billy Bean made the right decision to trade two of his starters. And I don't know, maybe also you could throw

Andrew Bailey in there this year, or if he either underestimated his own team and his own chances of being in a playoff race, or if he simply is by nature a little too conservative about putting himself in a position to win? Well, it certainly has been his standard operating procedure to get someone established and then deal him almost immediately for a package of prospects, sometimes more impressive than others. And that has worked out well for him in the past and hasn't come back to haunt him because the A's haven't been particularly close to a playoff team for several years now. Would he take it back if he could? It's possible, although, correct me if i'm wrong but i think that

i mean the ace greatest weaknesses i was looking at our visual depth chart earlier tonight because i'm writing an article about some of the the biggest weaknesses on each contender um and the a's have just total black holes at like like, catcher and second base and third base. I don't know. I mean, has their rotation been a weakness, really, to the—I mean, has Geo—obviously, he's been missed. But I don't know necessarily that he would have been quite as effective in Oakland as he has been in Washington, whether some of that is a National League switch effect. I don't know. I mean, I guess the A's would certainly be looking a lot more like a playoff

team if they had held on to those guys they traded. I don't know. I mean, remind me the package of prospects that they got for those guys. The Geodeal they got, Derek Norris, who has been right around replacement level, but has replaced lately a guy who has been well below replacement level. So that actually, he has not been good, but he has actually been an upgrade. Tom Malone, who has been worth about a win or so. Brad Peacock and A.J. Cole, who are not pitching. And then the Cahill deal, I think, is a little easier to say has been an unqualified success in that Jared Parker has clearly outpitched Trevor Cahill.

And they also got Cowgill in that deal. Cahill and they also got Cowgill in that deal and I think they also got, doggone it, I'm blanking on his name. I just saw his name about two seconds ago, Cook, the reliever who started out so strong for them and has had a good year. He's got a sub two ERA for them in relief. has had a good year he's got a sub two era for them in relief um and maybe if you really i mean if you did the addition and subtraction obviously bailey hasn't pitched um but if you added up the the production that they've gotten from the guys they traded for and compared it to the guys they traded it sounds like it might not be a huge difference well if you include

Redick in the math and at Redick and Bailey then yeah you might actually come out ahead this year and that's without including salary implications and without including the long-term outlook of the packages that they got and maybe that's the only fair way to do it is to look at them all as a group and say that they were all three part of the same philosophy. But like I said, I don't really have a fully formed view on this. was a i would say that the geo trade was sort of striking even by oakland's traditional operating practices because he was he's so far he was so far away from free agency and he was young and really cheap and not really in danger of getting all that expensive for a while still so it's not like they traded a guy with five years service time or anything like that.

So I don't know. I mean, I'm just kind of bringing it up. I think that long term, I think the development of some of the guys that they've got probably will vindicate the decision to make those three deals. And I think he got a very good package for Gio. And Gio has happened to take a step forward this year, but that was no guarantee. Right. That's what I was just going to bring up. And in retrospect, it seems maybe like more of a questionable move than it did at the time. I don't know that anyone really expected

Gio to be nearly as good as he has been. I remember at the time of the trade, there were a bunch of things written about how we shouldn't assume that he was going to take a step forward and that maybe this is just who he is and he's always going to struggle with his control and maybe would never take that leap. So maybe if they thought that that was the case then it's it's more defensible i guess or maybe they've just been taken by surprise a bit by by how well everything else has gone and they didn't really expect this to be a contention year yeah um which I guess maybe sort of serves as a segue to my topic, which is Steven Steven Strasburg, who pitched tonight and and looked or last night as you're listening to this and and looked a lot like Steven Strasburg. He he went seven innings against the Mets, gave up four hits, one run, no walks, 11 strikeouts. And so that took him to one hundred and seventeen in the third innings total on the season.

And every time Steven Strasburg pitches at this point, it's an easy column and maybe it's an easy podcast too, which is why we're talking about it. But every time he pitches, a whole, you know, a new wave of stories appears about the innings limit. And now he's a little bit closer than he was last time I wrote this story. And quotes from Johnson and quotes from Rizzo. And when are they going to shut him down?

And I guess just not even discussing whether it's a good idea. Not even discussing whether it's a good idea. I'm sort of of the opinion that it's not. Just based on people I've talked to who've told me that they think an innings limit is just sort of too simplistic a thing. And that it should be a case-by-case basis. And that guys can keep going indefinitely as long as they do the proper maintenance between starts but just putting aside that if you do decide to do an innings limit how would you go about implementing it or or announcing it or would you announce it because i think the nets have sort of backed themselves into this corner where since spring training, we've been talking about this and it seems like they've been talking about this. I mean, according to this MLB.com story I'm looking at, Davy Johnson said in February that it would be a 160 inning limit.

I think you can find stories that differ about who said what and exactly what the number is. But do you think that the Nets have created more trouble for themselves by acknowledging this at all or acknowledging it when they did? Well, yeah, they don't have, there's nothing to be gained, I don't think, from announcing it early on. I don't know. I mean, unless we're talking about announcing it internally to each other. I mean, that, from announcing it early on. I don't know. I mean, unless we're talking about announcing it internally to each other. I mean, that makes sense to have a plan.

But that's not a question that you really have to answer when a reporter asks you in spring training. And a lot of managers are really good at changing the subject and not bringing it up and not making it such an issue. I think that at this point they're somewhat backed into a corner, but also it's not like they're really backed into a corner. They still get to make the decision that they want to make, and I imagine that they will make a decision they want to make. The dilemma is not going to be how to please you and me or anybody else. The dilemma is going to be how to get into the postseason without risking any more than they need to risk. And that's going to be a difficult calculus, and I think it's particularly difficult with it being this year,

with it being this year, the first year under the new postseason arrangement, where I think it's still a little bit unclear about how much value the best record in the league is compared to the second best record in the league. And I mean, I think probably everybody has a good sense that winning the division is a much greater prize than winning the wildcard. But even still, there's a calculus to just how much more valuable it is. And if the Nationals are four and a half up in mid-August, because I believe they're four and a half up now, how safe is that? a half up now uh how safe is that and how how much uh is it a gamble if you know that you have a at the very least you do have a wild card in the extremely unlikely event that you before four and a half game late so all these maths are challenging um and i think that's going to be the problem they have much more than what david johnson's in february yeah i'm just i'm almost

as interested in how they go about it and how you would go about doing this once you've decided to do it i'm almost as interested in that as i am in in whether it's a good idea to do it at all and i wonder whether they're whether they their success this season took them by surprise and they figured, you know, we won't be really in contention until 2013. So we'll tell people this is coming. It won't be a surprise. Everyone will be expecting it. And we'll sort of ease them into the idea of shutting down Strasburg. And now they've, you know, their timetable has moved up.

Now they've been in first place almost all season. And so now it's a much bigger deal to shut down your best pitcher than it would be if you're, if it's, you know, like last year when they weren't in contention and they could shut down Zimmerman. you execute this and what the what the um how much flexibility you have i mean if the nationals knew that he had uh he's got what 40 43 innings to this um magical mark so say they they figure he's got seven more starts could you cherry seven starts that are against division and or wild card opponents or is it more important that you keep him on a regular every five days schedule? And if you shut him down in late August, obviously he's going to pitch in October. Can he take a month and a half off and do those innings count? And is he now out of his routine?

And all those sorts of issues that I think some aspiring reporter should enterprise. Yeah, well, they've said pretty conclusively that they won't shut him down and restart him. At all? No, they've said once he's shut down, he's shut down. And they think it would be maybe the most dangerous thing to shut him down and then have to stretch him out again. So it sounds like once they shut him down he is done unless they go back on that which i think is the other danger of of stating this stuff so openly is that if you decide to change your mind at some point i mean they've already basically told us that they think it's unsafe for him to pitch beyond that mark so now if if they change their mind and they allow him to pitch beyond that mark. So now if they change their mind and they allow him to pitch beyond it, then it's like, well, okay, so you're actually putting your pitcher at risk now.

You think that this is endangering him, as you said before, but you're still letting him pitch. That seems more irresponsible than if they'd never said anything and just stretched him out. Well, I mean, I don't want to i i don't want to sound too conclusive about an issue that i don't know anything about but i mean he's pitching in october right there's no way they're making the playoffs i mean for the first time in forever and not pitching him it's it's hard to imagine that certainly certainly, but that's what makes the PR aspect of this so fascinating to me. It's not like teams have never lied or stretched the truth or hidden the truth before, but they've been so public about this so many times for so long that you'd think that they'd almost have to be bound to stick to their word or their word won't be worth much. And I think one of the most shocking aspects of it is that

if you believe what Steven Strasberg said last week, that no one has talked to him about it, I mean, that seems especially strange. You'd think that unless they think that it would be in his head constantly if they had talked to him and that he would alter his pitching somehow and they were worried about that. But it just keeps resurfacing almost every time he starts. There's a new angle.

Last week it was Strasburg saying they'd have to rip the ball out of his hand and also Mike Rizzo just making this sort of odd statement about he and only he would be the one to decide and no one else would would decide which I don't know if anyone else was was asking that but it was sort of this weird chest beating thing I think they should just let Rob Dibble decide. Well, we know what he would say. Anyway, it's just, I mean, I think that the issue of whether the innings limit makes sense is a very interesting one. But I think the issue of how you go about publicizing or implementing the innings limit once you decide that it makes sense is almost as interesting.

I mean, just to wrap up, I guess if you decided whatever studies you performed, whatever doctors you talked to told you that it was unsafe for your star pitcher to go beyond 160 innings and you did all the calculations and decided that it wasn't worth the risk for whatever reason, how would you go about announcing that or not or not announcing it would you say it months in advance would you say surprise that's it after the last start i mean how would you do that to minimize the the fallout i would never say anything to anybody yeah i i mean i i think that uh i would probably just be a guy who would

just never talk to the press at all i would be the worst manager yeah i i mean you have to say something but i i think if it were up to me i would probably probably be as tight-lipped as possible about this just so as to reduce the attention that is now focused so intensely on them i bet we're going to talk about this again ben i bet we we probably are probably every time steven strasburg starts between now and the end of the season every five or six days i look forward to it so this has been episode seven and and we will be coming to you again tomorrow. I hope I will be coming to you again tomorrow. I will be in a very remote location, but I hope to be joining you,

and Sam will be here either way. So until what day are we talking about here? Until Friday. Friday, end of the week. We will be back for Episode 8.