Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 74: The Ervin Santana Trade, the Royals’ Rotation, and the Pitching Market/Rick Hahn and the Future of Front Offices

Episode Date: November 1, 2012

Ben and Sam discuss what the Ervin Santana trade says about the Royals’ rotation and the pitching market, then talk about what Rick Hahn’s ascension to the GM role in Chicago means for the future of front offices.

Good morning, good evening, welcome to Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives. We are on episode 74. I'm in Long Beach, California. I'm Sam Miller in New York, New York. It's Ben Lindberg. Ben, how are you doing? Great. Do you have food and water? Yeah, I never lost it. Great. Well, I'm glad to hear that. Do you have a topic about baseball? Yeah. I am going to read part of a reader email and kind of use that to talk about the Royals rotation and Irvin Santana and the pitching market. I'm going to talk about Rick Hahn, and by talk about, I'm going to express admiration for a piece we ran about Rick Hahn today and not go much deeper than that.

Why don't you start and hopefully carry us near the end of this show? Okay, so we got an email from listener Dane. This is a historic moment. It is the first listener email that has been read on the show. Dane said, I am a Royals fan who hopes that some rotation help is coming soon. This is a couple of days ago. David Glass in some media outlets has stated that the club would be looking to bolster the rotation and Dayton Moore has discussed trying to do so via

free agency or trade. Can you discuss the potential starting pitcher possibilities for the Royals, including but not limited to the following names? He then names some starting pitchers. Then he says what pitchers might make the most sense for the Royals. Are there any DFA players like potentially Jair Juergen? Oh, poor Royals. Poor Royals.

The big hopes for their rotation is, are there any DFA players? Right. I love the podcast. It is a highlight of my day when I can shut my door and listen in because he is afraid to listen with the door open because people might know that he is listening to our podcast, presumably. So the Royals did make a starting pitcher move yesterday. They traded for Urban Santana, whom we talked about a couple days ago. What did we say about him? I was trying to remember what I predicted they'd do. I think we said that they would decline the option and that he had a better chance to resign there than anywhere else, but not a much better chance than that. He would probably, I mean, most likely end up somewhere

else. I think that's what we said. Okay. So yeah, I mean, we definitely thought that the option would be declined because it's kind of for a lot of money. And instead of being declined, it was almost like a salary dump of sorts where the Royals basically picked up the option for the Angels. It was a $13 million option and sent back kind of a quadruple-A type pitcher in return. And I guess it was maybe sort of surprising to me at least that the Royals would pick up that option because the Angels are the higher payroll team, certainly, with the deeper pockets,

and they felt that that was too much to pay for Irvin Santana, it would seem. And the Royals didn't. Of course, the Royals are kind of in a different situation where they have a lot of young position players and promising hitters. But their pitching is really thin right now. And they may have some guys on the way. They do have some guys on the way. And they have Danny Duffy coming back from Tommy John surgery.

And there's, I mean, there's some hope on the horizon, but it seems like more of a ETA 2014 thing where you could start to really put together a solid one to five just based on people who are already in their organization. So you're looking at another year of Luke Hochaver and Bruce Chen and Luis Mendoza and these sorts of people. These sorts of people. These sorts of people. Yes. Felipe Paulino is also returning from tummy gen surgery at some point. And they also claimed Chris Volstad a couple days ago, which is another starting pitcher, if you go by the technical definition of the term.

And there's some reason to think, I think, that he's better than he has shown. But so I wonder whether this signals something about the offseason that the Royals were willing to pay that much for Irvin Santana. It seemed to me like maybe if they're willing to pay that much, it's because they think that the market is kind of going to be crazy and that the only way that they could afford someone was by going for a one-year player. And Dayton Moore said some things a few days ago few days ago in, in the Kansas city star.

Uh, he said, we've got to look internally. We've got to look through trades. We've got to look certainly through free agency. We might be able to pick off a player or two, but we're not going to build our team through free agency. It won't work. Uh, and he said, we know who we are and how we have to build this team and how we have to build our rotation.

We're going to be as aggressive as we can, but we know who we are and how we have to build this team and how we have to build our rotation, we're going to be as aggressive as we can, but we know who we are and how we need to do it, which sounds sort of like an acknowledgement that they're a team that doesn't typically spend a ton of money. I'm looking forward to getting my Kansas City Royals, we know who we are promotional mug for 2013. Worst team motto ever no actually not i think because wasn't their motto a couple years ago major league moments yeah that's not that's pretty bad too yeah i'm gonna look for that while you're saying something at some point but But so I feel like Buster only said a few days ago that Kyle Loesch might command a deal similar to C.J. Wilson's

in the five years. Wait, Buster said that too? Yeah. Oh, I was thinking that was just John Heyman crankery, but now we've got two. I think he said that five years, 75 is what Wilson got. So if there's some sort of sense in the industry that Kyle Loesch could command that kind of money,

then you start to see why Irvin Santana for $13 million in one year might not be such a bad idea. So I don't know. I wonder whether that is a sign and I don't know if you want to lump it together with the Brandon league deal as, as an early indicator that things are going to get crazy. On the other hand, you had signed, I don't know, a fairly reasonable deal, I guess he signed a, uh, I mean, he's back with the White Sox for two years at basically double Brandon League money for each year, which is not so bad.

Well, I actually was thinking about this exact topic, but with the alternate theory that this shows that maybe the inflation that people have been hyping for the last year or so is perhaps a little overstated or still a ways away. For one thing, reliever salaries always seem to operate on their own math. For another, the Dodgers seem to be in their own market right now. PV is pretty clearly not an inflationary contract. That was $29 million for two years. If you consider the buyout that the White Sox already owed him to be a sunk cost, you're talking about basically $25 million for two years of a three-win-a-year pitcher, You're talking about basically $25 million for two years of a three-win-a-year pitcher, something like $4.5 to $5.5 million per win, which is not inflationary at all. Santana, I think, is probably – I mean, it's an overpay.

I wouldn't have picked this contract up. But to me, the fact that the Angels found a taker is not so notable as the fact that the Angels had to, they had to pay the buyout that they were going to pay anyway, the million dollars. So essentially what they did is they found somebody who would pay him 12 million, but not somebody who would pay him 13 million. And they certainly didn't find anybody who would, who thought that Santana was worth 14 or 15 and was therefore willing to give a player of any value whatsoever back.

Now, you can note that the Angels had no leverage because everybody knew that they weren't going to pick up this option. But nonetheless, if there were two teams out there that wanted Irvin Santana badly enough, then the Angels theoretically could have gotten more than they got. They got essentially nothing, and they had to pay the million dollars so is it a little bit of an overpay I think probably yes but is it is it unreasonable that a major league team would look at Santana consider him roughly a league average pitcher consider that to be you know a two-win

pitcher basically six million per win is a little high, but it's only one year. And I think that you can definitely put a premium on a one-year contract with a pitcher instead of having to go multiple years. And Santana is also kind of like the prototypical live arm that pitching coaches covet. So to me, this indicates that we are not out of hand, that this is not an out of hand market at all yet. Okay. Well, we'll see. I guess to get back to Dean's question, I probably wouldn't expect the Royals to make any major commitment bigger than this one. I guess there's always the possibility that they'll have some sort of Gilmish-sized contract for Kyle Loesch or someone like that.

I guess it's possible. And some people have speculated that they might trade one of their promising young hitters, whether it's Hosmer Moustakis, who have a ton of value, or Gordon, who's signed on a pretty reasonable deal, or Butler. People have mentioned the Mariners' James Paxton as a possibility. So that's possible, I guess, but based on the Volstad and the Santana and Dayton Moore's comments. I guess I would probably expect them to just kind of do more of this bottom feeding and hope to get lucky somewhere.

I guess some people have kind of been disturbed by the fact that, I don't know, it reminded them of the Jonathan Sanchez trade, which also happened early last offseason and was a trade for another guy kind of coming off sort of a downish year. One-year commitment. Yeah, right, and that didn't work out so well, although it did get them Jeremy Guthrie eventually.

And I don't know, Moore said something about how the Royal Scouts have seen Chris Volstad and were very impressed with him and think he still has his stuff, which reminded me of when they traded for Vin Mazzaro in the David DeJesus trade. And since that trade, he has pitched 72 innings for the Royals with a 6.72 ERA. So anyway, you can... It is interesting that the Royals don't have one. They don't have a rotation that is bad because they didn't try to fix it.

I mean, I'm looking at the arms that they've had in the last few years, and they're not homegrown guys where they just went cheap and raised their own guys like the 2002 Tigers or anything like that. They've made a lot of trades. These guys are just all terrible, like Will Smith and Mazzaro and Shano Sullivan. I mean, they keep trying, and it just isn't very effective. I like the Paulino move quite a bit, and it was working out well early on until he got hurt. Yeah, that was a nice one.

Yeah. It was. Do you? Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, that was a nice one. Yeah. It was. Do you?

Sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, do you buy into the idea that a team like the Royals, even if they wanted to throw their money around in the free agent market, would have to pay such a premium because players just don't want to play for a losing team? Or do you think that that's overstated and that money usually talks? Yeah, I think it's probably overstated. I guess all else being equal, most players would want to go to a winning team. But I don't know. I guess based on the young talent the Royals have and the weakness of the division, I don't know.

I can't imagine that free agents would just demand a massive premium to go there. I was just looking for their Major League Moments campaign, and it was their 2011 team motto, their campaign and tagline. Major League Moments, not that many of them, but there were some. So shall we move on? Kansas City Royals, Major League debuts. So shall we move on?

Kansas City Royals, Major League debuts. Okay, so I just wanted to plug the piece that Bradford Doolittle wrote for us about Rick Hahn and his new job as the general manager of the White Sox. It ran Wednesday, and it's tremendous. It's just a, it's a greatly detailed, uh, and comprehensive look at the organization and Han and Kenny Williams and baseball in general. And it's wonderful and everybody should read it. Um, just about everything. Uh, Brad Doolittle writes, I think people he's, he's great. Yeah. He's tremendous. Yes. But so Han is this guy who has been for, I don't know, a half decade at least at the top of the next GM lists or near the top. And certainly lately, probably at the top, he has reportedly turned down flirtations from other teams. Partly, it seems, because he had so much power already in the White Sox organization.

And so now he's going to be the GM. Kenny Williams, who was the GM, is going to be vice president of something, one of these kind of titles where you don't quite know what he is responsible for, but theoretically is in a position of greater power and less responsibility, which is a nice place to be. Brad sort of suggests that it might not quite be a promotion for Williams. It's sort of hard to tell, and notes that it's a position that didn't exist before, and so it might just be this kind of place where he floats around. But I guess my point or my feeling about this stuff is that I just find it, and I want to bring it up because I think you know more about front offices than I do.

At this point, GMs are more famous than they've ever been. When I was 15 or before I was 15, I wouldn't have probably known any GMs in baseball except for the Giants and A's because they were my hometown teams. And even them I might have only known because I needed to know who to send my trade proposals to. Still surprised that they didn't pull off that Jose Uribe for Alan Trammell deal that I suggested in 1987. But now, of course, GMs are stars. They're famous. Every baseball fan knows them. And in a lot of ways, we treat them as kind of more important than the manager and more important than a lot of the players.

And yet, it seems to me that the actual responsibilities of a GM are becoming more and more opaque. And the structure of teams is varying. And the, you know, for instance, I don't really know what Theo Epstein does in Chicago. And because of that, I don't really know what Jed Hoyer does in Chicago. And I think the same way with this Kenny Williams, Rick Hahn thing, you know hahn was um i mean hahn was already in a position of of a lot of responsibility he has a title change now kenny williams though is going to still be there and it sounds like from reading the what what they're writing about this move in chicago and such that kenny williams will still kind of be in a veto position and that Kenny Williams can still decide kind of the culture or the ideology of the organization.

And so it's hard to tell whether this changes everything because you're changing from a – I mean, Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn are very different. Williams is very old school. Hahn is quite new school, is at least how they're presented in public. So it could be a huge change, or it could just be almost no change, and that this is simply a matter of kind of changing who is in charge of executing Kenny Williams' vision and Reinsdorf's vision. So I don't know.

It seems to me in a lot of ways that the more famous GMs get and the more we focus on them, in a way, maybe the less power they have. And that might especially be true because I think we've seen the spectrum of ideologies really shrink in baseball where most teams are probably within spitting distance of each other. And it really becomes much more about having a GM who can execute and having a GM who's much more a manager than an ideologue. So I don't know if you have any thoughts about that. Yeah, I guess I thought the same thing last offseason when we heard that Epstein would kind of have final approval of all baseball moves but would not be the GM. And I guess his position is a little different than Williams in ways that are unclear. But I think the job has probably just gotten too big for one person.

Not that it has ever been done exclusively by one person, but I think it's just becoming more, or I think front offices are becoming more specialized um just as say bullpens are are becoming more specialized um so it's almost like i don't know like the the gm is the closer or something if we want to extend this terrible metaphor i'm just coming up with on the fly but i like it i like the metaphor okay but but the other innings that he's not pitching are maybe just as important or almost as important uh and so maybe it does kind of come down to having a gm mentality if you will which is uh i guess more of a an ability to manage

people and an ability to deal with the media more so than necessarily about player evaluation skills or scouting or being a hardcore stat guy. Because you don't need to be a hardcore stat guy because you can hire a hardcore stat guy who can spend his whole day doing hardcore stat guy stuff and not be distracted by interviews and being the public face of the team. So I don't know whether ultimately it's evolving, whether the eventual destination is like almost a figurehead role where most of the actual work is done by the subordinates. I guess probably not. I guess even if most of the work is being done or most of the legwork or the research is being done by other people, you still need someone to kind of tie it up into a consistent vision and decide between warring opinions at various parts of the front office. But it definitely does seem to be an evolution towards a more fractured front office and kind of a more, I don't know, like a many-headed front office where if one executive leaves

and you cut off that part, it will just grow back and the rest of it will keep functioning. So it's interesting to watch. Do you ever have a moment of regret when you realize that you just wasted an entire article idea on like 12 seconds of a podcast? That closer metaphor, that closer analogy, that could have been like a full piece. Well, I already did that piece about how every team's GMs are getting smarter and there's less and less difference between them, so maybe it would be kind of derivative.

I don't think it would be. Anyway, well, I'm glad that I asked you because I think that you added a lot to my knowledge of the situation. We're done with this show. We'll be back with Episode 75 tomorrow.