Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 773: The Aroldis Chapman Trade Discussion

Episode Date: November 24, 2015

Ben and Sam banter about Lloyd McClendon’s new managerial job, then talk about Aroldis Chapman being on the block.

Switchin' all the time, switchin' ain't no crime I gotta change the climate, I gotta raise my rate You see a boy in motion, it's never much too late Switchin' is easy, hope it's essential and you know When you pick it, you can start a new episode Good morning and welcome to episode 773 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus, brought to you by The Play Index at BaseballReference.com.

I'm Sam Miller, along with Ben Lindberg of FiveThirtyEight. Hi, Ben. Hello. How are you doing? Okay. Anything you want to talk about today, Ben? Well, Lloyd McClendon was hired to manage the Toledo Mudhens. It seems like a weird transition, right?

It doesn't seem like a lot of major league managers go from major league manager to minor league manager. Multi-time major league manager, experienced manager who's managed for multiple teams maybe he figures that being the triple a manager for the tigers when brad osmus is fired is like your best shot of being a manager again it is like it is like looking at all the closers and figuring out which which setup guy you should pick up by who's got the shakiest hold on the road. So he's like, he's a, yeah, he's a wobbly chair assessor. He's analyzed all the chair solidities and he thinks that Osmus' is the wobbliest. So he's next in line, maybe, but it's a weird move.

It's like, it's not quite Ruben Amaro becoming the Red Sox first base coach after being a GM, but it's up there. You definitely don't see guys going back down to the minors in a full-time role like that these days. When you said it's not quite, I don't know what metric we're using to measure these moves, but I kind of feel like it maybe is more surprising to me. Although you're right, the Ausmus angle is solid. But to me, it's...

Well, first of all, okay, do AAA managers ever get bumped up to the major league manager? It seems like that's rare. Like, I can't... Yeah, that is... Yeah, I mean, they're often the interim guy, I think. But the interim guy often doesn't get hired. Yeah, it seems like...

I don't know if it ever was and maybe it still is more than i'm thinking but it sort of feels like an an old model like i could see 60 years ago you fire your manager and then you go well bump up the guy from triple a but i kind of feel like now bench coaches the clear the clear uh farm system for your interim manager. Like, for instance, Pete McKinnon with the Phillies. Right. And many others, but McKinnon especially. Yeah. And so anyway, that to me feels weirder than Amaro

because Amaro still gets all the luxury of being in the major leagues. Like, he still gets the travel the ballpark the you know the third deck the per diem doesn't get the luxury suite probably he doesn't he could he could wander in but the game is going on so he's gotta be standing in first base no i don't mean he owns the third deck i'm saying like he gets to he gets to stand under the third deck you know okay the prestige of the third deck uh and uh and he gets to hang out the third deck, you know, the prestige of the third deck. Uh, and, uh, and he gets to hang out with, you know, David Ortiz instead of like Nick Noonan. I don't know. I couldn't think of one quick enough. Uh, and that's all really fun. And it's clearly a, like,

this is, I think it's safe to kind of assume based on his, uh, job search and what he's expressed that he wants to do. This is clearly like for him going to grad school, right? Like he's, he's setting himself up to, to learn so that he can move into this next phase. This is a, a stepping stone for him. For Amaro. For Amaro. Yeah. And so, yeah, it's like, you know, sometimes, for instance, grown adults who have accomplished careers still go to the University of Phoenix and get their degree in something. And that's kind of what he's doing here. And you wouldn't mock him and be like, ah, back to college. It's just what you do.

And so that kind of makes some sense to me. And McLennan makes some sense to me, too. If we're measuring the surprise, I would say that the Amara one has more colorful details, but the McLennan one is technically probably more surprising. Yeah. He must really love managing or be really, really confident. He must be really shorting Brad Ausmus' managerial career. Yeah. How far away is Toledo from Indiana?

It's pretty close, right? Yeah. He's from Indiana. Maybe he gets a little bit of a hometown maybe he i mean maybe he would rather be 200 miles from his home uh than to be a bench coach for the mariners or well he probably wouldn't be for the mariners but you know to be a bench coach for some team that's much farther away from his home which would be the other natural thing like that's what you would otherwise expect is you'd expect him to be a bench coach. All right. Well, we've broken down Lloyd McClendon's new job from every angle. I wonder if bench coach is going to be a position that we start paying a lot more attention

to and that we, oh, that becomes a lot more competitive because it does sort of seem like the bench coach has more of a role, more in a lot of cases, more of a liaison type role with the front office than it used to, that there's a lot more information processing required. And where I do sort of think of the bench coach as being the natural next step is manager more than any other position. Like Mark McGuire, for instance, just got mcguire for instance just got named while we were talking just got named the bench coach of the padres and that seems kind of significant like doesn't that sort of seem like oh mark mcguire is going to be a manager soon

yeah and so i i wonder if we'll start paying a lot more attention to bench coaches okay time will tell we probably will you and me probably will. Anything else? Nope. All right. So, Ben, I want to talk about Aroldis Chapman. Okay. Our very first topic on this podcast. Maybe our last. Maybe we'll call it quits after this.

I want to talk about Aroldis Chapman from a couple of different angles, but his place on the trade market right now. He seems very likely to be traded. Walt Jockety said that he hopes to get something done at the winter meetings, which is a very specific, like a very direct, I mean, you usually know who's available and who's being shopped,

but you very rarely hear a GM say, I want to move this guy now it's almost leverage reducing it would be if uh it seems leverage reducing although i sort of suspect that to some degree that leverage is uh way overhyped uh with this sort of stuff uh i mean the mere fact that you're having a conversation about a player indicates that you're willing to move him. And I don't know how much more. But anyway, it is weird.

All right. So the first thing I want to talk about with Aroldis Chapman is that he is a year away from free agency. He is a reliever. He has always been a reliever. He doesn't have to have always been a reliever, but he was. And it used to be very controversial that he was a reliever. The first episode we talked about, I think, was partly about this question, whether he should be a reliever. And they almost made him a starter.

He preferred relieving. And I'm wondering, though, now, from his perspective, he's a year away from free agency. If he were to declare right now, I actually do want to be a starter. I'm going to be a starter this year. Make me a starter. And he became an average or better starter, he would be in line to make a lot more as a free agent, right? I mean, I don't know what the outer bounds of what a reliever can get as a free agent. He would definitely test it.

But like Andrew Miller, he has a much shorter track record. But Andrew Miller is about as good as a free agent, he would definitely test it. But like Andrew Miller is, it has a much shorter track record, but Andrew Miller is about as good as a reliever can be. And, you know, it's, I don't think he got 50 million guaranteed. And Craig Kimbrell is what was, this was a pre ARB extension, but you know, it's somewhere around like probably 60 million is probably the most a reliever can hope to get, right four at 60 yeah fair estimate for what are all this chapman will get as a reliever on the free agent market and and then you know a good starter a number two starter will make much more than that then you're looking at something like 100 million maybe more and if he's an ace now now you're looking at 180 million maybe million, maybe something ridiculous.

And so it does, I'm not suggesting he's going to do this, but carrying over our conversation yesterday about how much an agent should be involved in team decisions and further how much a player should be involved in team decisions and how much he should be advocating for his own self-interest, this is a scenario that is potentially kind of like what I was talking about the slippery slope getting to, where you could imagine Aroldis Chapman, as a rookie, as a second-year player, as a third-year player, as a fourth-year player, very reasonably saying, I want to be a reliever. Make me a reliever.

I don't want to pitch all the time. I don't want to get hurt. I want to be a reliever. Make me a reliever. I don't want to pitch all the time. I don't want to get hurt. I want to keep my arm fresh. It does me no good to pitch 230 innings before you're paying me for them. So make me a reliever. That's where I'm comfortable. And then his incentives then in year five, after his fifth year, they become perhaps the exact opposite, where now he can be a starter. Everybody will talk about how young his arm is because he saved all his bullets. They already know how dominant he is. He already got to basically made about as much

as he would have made as a starter up to this point anyway. And now he can reposition himself as a starting pitcher, hit free agency, get starting pitching money, and maybe even get more than the average starter because of the young arm theory, right? Yeah, I think so. I don't know. I wonder if he announced today that he'd prefer to be a starting pitcher next year, how many

teams would actually make him the starting pitcher next year? I wonder if that ship has sort of sailed at this point. Now that so many teams have seen him be excellent in a closer role and know that he was reluctant to be a starter before, and maybe those teams have become convinced that his stuff or his mentality plays better in the bullpen, I wonder if you put a role to Chapman on 30 teams somehow and told them that he'd be open to being a starter next year, how many of them would actually convert him? Well, there's two questions. One is how many would do it by choice. And then the other question is, does the player actually have any leverage in this situation? Because if your agent calls and does the same kind of intervention that, you know, Scott Boris might do for Jose Fernandez's innings or did for Strasburg's innings or did for

Harvey's innings, does he actually have any pull? So of the 30, how many would do it gladly and excitedly and say, oh, thank goodness he finally came to his senses. And we just, I mean, because really, like, you've seen a Roldaldis Chapman pitch. Like you could imagine that that would be a pretty fun starter. You could imagine that he could be a, he could be a top five starter in baseball, right? I could imagine. I think it's unlikely, but. Why do you think it's unlikely? I mean, it may, it's unlikely because it's unlikely that anybody will be, but why is it unlikely? I mean, the guy, he sits 103 in relief. Like, he's got multiple pitches.

He's unhittable. His strikeout rate is 16 per 9 as a reliever, and he's basically, you know, invincible, right? As a reliever, he is. As a reliever. So what is it about him that makes you think that he would be trouble he just i mean he doesn't use his change up that much and he doesn't have to in this role of course but i don't know how good it is i mean it's good

probably when he's throwing 103 and he's not using it very much but is it a real third pitch that would be average or better for a starter i i don't know maybe so that would be my concern and just you know his his past reluctance to be a starter and the fact that he's like the ultimate max effort guy would he be able to sustain that for six innings so there are some doubts i mean there there's enough doubt that i wouldn't project him to be one of the best starters in baseball if he were to make that transition now what would you project him to be i guess above average but yeah that's about all i would say really so if uh if i gave you the choice uh between him and danny duffy as a starter wow really i'd have to think about it wow him or marco estrada probably take chapman over estrada but yeah i yeah, I mean, I don't know. We haven't seen it, right?

And when he started in the minors, it wasn't all that impressive. Imagine that you'd never seen him pitch at all, that he was a Cuban import right now, and you just saw his bullpen. I mean, how much would you pay for that guy right now as a starter? Uh-huh. Yeah. I mean, I guess if I thought of it that way, I'd maybe be more optimistic. I mean, I don't, he just, you know, he walks a lot of guys and he walked a lot of guys as a starter in the minors and he walked a lot of guys in Cuba. And so I don't know.

I'm just, I'm not sure. I mean, if he loses a few miles per hour, he'd obviously still be throwing upper 90s. But would the changeup be good if he's using it 20% of the time? And would he be able to pace himself? And would he be happy? All of those doubts would creep in.

So I don't know i wouldn't project him to be an elite starter it's just such a weird transition it's i mean there are probably very few successful relievers who could have been good starters right because in almost every case if you can be a good starter you get to be a starter um generally when a team puts you in the bullpen i mean maybe it's because you really really want to be in the bullpen but there's usually some kind of concern that maybe it wouldn't work as well in the starting rotation so well but there's concern there's every starter doesn't work as well in the rotation there's always concern that you still get value

out of it though like nobody's a perfect starter even kershaw doesn't have a change up yeah well he's got many pitches he's maybe too many pitches but yeah i mean i mean that it would be a a larger than usual gap between what you are as a starter and as a reliever for him well i'm very i am surprised to hear that you that you are that somewhat pessimistic on his outlook as a starter uh imagine uh so so you think what of the 30 teams what what's your guess for how many would uh opt for starter as choice as their choice, okay. Now, of the other 21, do you think that there are any that could be compelled to put him in the starting job simply by him saying,

this is what I want, this is how I'm going to... I mean, it's worked for him before, right? Yeah, that's the ultimate leverage that a player has, is that teams want their player to be happy because they think that he'll do better. So you don't want a sulking player who's not going to pitch as well because he doesn't have confidence or he's not happy. And he's not only performing worse, but he's messing with clubhouse chemistry because he's sulking about his role. And so all those things definitely enter into it that's that's some leverage that you have as a player so if he did declare on in this hypothetical 30 teams

have him world if he did declare that he wanted to be a starter he his agent demands that he be a starter that he says he is not interested in playing for a team that will not let him start. How many teams have him starting? I think at least 20 have him start in spring training, which he's done before with the Reds. And so, yeah, maybe 20, maybe 25. I mean, there's no real harm in giving a guy a shot in spring training. You might say that it increases your injury risk to switch roles or something. But other than that, the games don't matter,

and you have to build up the arm anyway. So I would say a large majority of them would at least give him the chance to prove himself or fail. Let's say that this was his plan all along, to save his arm, to be in relief, to dominate, and then to, in year six, reclaim his role as a starter. Very clever. It is very clever, yeah.

Well, what I'm going to ask you, though, is was it too clever by half? Would he have hurt his chances? Or would he have been better off being a starter the whole time, in your opinion? I don't think so. better off being a starter the whole time in your opinion i don't think so i think if he could demonstrate that he could start now he would make more than if he had been starting you know at a fairly good level all along i think people pay probably more than they should pay a premium for pitchers who can do both roles well or or they value them more like the john smoltz hall of fame case where people were adding up his wins as a starter and his saves as a reliever even though

saves are way less impressive than what he did as a starter and people did that yeah people people did that and people you know like he he got this big bump over equivalent guys like Messina or Schilling. And part of that, it seemed like, at least I wrote about this, and a lot of the people who kind of gave him an edge over those pitchers cited the fact that he was like an elite closer and an elite starter, which is a weird kind of dumb, I think, argument. Because most elite starters could be elite closers if they wanted to be, but they don't want to be. And he had to be because he had injury issues. So he was in a less valuable role and he was still really good at that role. But yeah, I think if Aroldis Chapman went from being maybe the best closer in baseball to a good starter, people would pay him even more, maybe. I mean, if only just because he has a ton of notoriety now. He's Aroldis Chapman,

the guy who throws harder than anyone else has ever thrown. And part of that is because he's been a closer and he's been pitching an inning at a time and so he could really air it out so he's known as this flame throwing master and he has that going for him even if he were to switch to the starting rotation and only throw 98 or something people would still think of him as a role as chapman the guy who throws harder than anyone else so yeah i think if he started this year only people would pay him as much or more than if he had been starting at the same level for several years and not only just the being able to do both jobs even though it's really just one job and and a subset of that job but as you said he'd have fewer innings on his

arm and less stress and workload and you could say that maybe he'd be a lower injury risk too. So, yeah, I think it would benefit him. Do you believe that it is more likely that he would have been injured by now if he'd been a starter? Yes. Okay. So this is only a sample of one, but it does seem like if this had been his plan all along,

it would have worked out absolutely beautifully for him. And so, you know, if a player feels like he has the leverage to dictate the way his club uses him, which is the whole point of the conversation is, should a player, and is it good and right that a player should feel that way, or whether a player should accept that he is an employee who has managers who get to tell him what to do. Then you could imagine that for any number of top prospects coming up, particularly the ones who luck into a bullpen role for their first exposure, maybe ought to be doing this.

I don't know that there is a downside. The only downsides would be, A, you might hurt your arbitration earnings. B, you might be, it's conceivable that being used in relief might actually, for whatever reason, your reasons, their reasons, who knows, might actually make you more likely to get hurt because it's a different kind of a fatigue, but maybe that fatigue hurts your arm more. it's a different kind of fatigue but maybe that fatigue hurts your arm more and C3 whichever I was doing

you have to now convince people that you can handle the starting role it's hard once you've locked into a role it's hard to convince people but like I don't know could Trevor Rosenthal demand to be a starter right now? Same question but 30 teams have Trevor Rosenthal demand to be a starter right now? Same question, but 30 teams have Trevor Rosenthal, and he demands to start.

How many teams is he starting on? I'd say maybe more than Chapman, just because... More than Chapman? Because he's not as good a reliever? Yeah, maybe that, or did he start longer? Did he have more of a... I mean, he never started in the majors. Well, Chapman just made it to the majors so quickly. So he was a starter for one year in the minors.

Right. Because that was his only year. I presume he was a starter in Cuba. Rosenthal was a starter all the way up until he got there. Right, yeah. So the fact that he was a starter in AAA and people were still talking about him as a starter not that long ago i think maybe people would be more willing to give him a shot

but i don't know about the same how many if andrew miller demanded zero even if he demanded yeah okay and way davis zero yeah okay yeah if you were if you were bad as a starter and that Even if he demanded? Yeah. Okay. And Wade Davis, zero? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. If you were bad as a starter, and at least as a reliever, then you're not going to go back. So I guess, like, imagine that Wade Davis, because Wade Davis was also a very good prospect, maybe not quite the same level, but a very good prospect, came up as a starter. Imagine if he had been a reliever this whole time.

Then I would probably be assuming that this would be a guarantee for him too, but instead now he presumably would hit his year six ultimatum, demand to be a starter, be a starter for the first time, probably be awful, and then go into free, how much would that hurt him going into free agency, as opposed to whether he had just been a great starter, a great reliever? Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm trying to figure out if there's any downside here.

What is the downside here, besides being known as an agitator? Right, yeah, I'm not sure that there's that much downside. If he were bad as a starter in 2016, I think, I mean, A, he probably wouldn't spend the whole season in the rotation, right? No one would give him a full season if you know you have a role as Chapman, like potential best reliever in baseball. If he struggles for a few starts, you probably just turn him back into amazing, world-est Chapman. So, yeah, I don't think there's that much downside other than just his flip-flopping and indecisiveness about what he wants to do. And that's probably about it. Oh, man, this is going to happen.

It should happen. If I were his agent, I would definitely bring it up. I would at least take his temperature on this. All right. Last angle to Chapman is Jeff Sullivan wrote a nice piece about his trade value. And I'm curious what you think his trade value should be. And as Jeff notes, the first thing that you have to do is figure out what he would get as a closer if he were a free agent willing to sign one year. So what do you think a team would pay Aroldis Chapman

for one year if he were a free agent right now? I think Jeff was about right. Jeff guessed 25, maybe 30. I don't think it would get to 30, but I think 25 is about right. I mean, he is truly a 60-inning reliever. He's not going to have a 70- or 80-inning year. So, obviously, he's as dominant as anyone in those innings but yeah i don't know paying a closer i mean as jeff pointed out the highest annual salary ever is what 31 million and i don't think that a closer even on a year would get to that so somewhere in the 25 to 30 range so let's say it's 30 when he does hit free agency he's let you know again like i think maybe 4 and 60 is a reasonable guess for for what he'll get

just based on what other closers have gotten and where the cap seems to be and for years we've kind of agreed that closers as a group are Overpaid that teams go too long and too expensive on guys who are fairly replaceable when they could have comparable options pitching for them in triple-a or whatever but I If he's really worth 30 a year for one year and it seems to me that four at 60 is way low and it makes me wonder whether we're seeing whether in fact all this time or at least recently the very top relievers have

been like hugely undervalued yeah unless you think that relievers are less reliable just as a group than other types of players and so you would pay a premium for other types of players. And so you would pay a premium for one year of a reliever, but you would have a disproportionate discount for subsequent years compared to other positions. I don't know if that's true, but that is a perception, right? People think that about relievers, that they're more variable or more fungible or just more liable to turn back into a pumpkin. I think the most important factor with relievers is really the idea that if you have, now I'll back up a little and say, well, there's certainly room for two dominant relievers in a bullpen

or three or four or five. There's not like a max of one. But the thing about the teams that did well in the postseason this year is that, as a lot of people noted, they had great lights-out closers. And one of the reasons the Astros seem to be in the mix for Chapman and every other awesome reliever is that they were seen as not having that great lights out closer and all of that. But it's not as though these are teams that went out looking for a lights

out closer. The lesson every year is that guys emerge out of nowhere. I mean, Osuna was in high A. Wade Davis was, you know, last year he was great, but he was a failed starter. Familia wasn't the closer on opening day. Who else was there in the, Rondon was, you know. Andrew Miller was a failed starter. Was a failed starter that the Yankees did spend for him. They did go, you had, they had to get, they had to pay Andrew Miller prices for Andrew Miller. And you could argue that the Dodgers are essentially paying

Kenley Jansen prices for Kenley Jansen, even though he's though you could also say, well, he was a converted catcher. But the point is kind of that everybody wants to have the lights out bullpen. It is very difficult to prioritize that. And that the teams that do prioritize that seem every year to end up with the wrong guy. And so it's not clear that knowing how important a closer is is the same as being able to do it. So, I don't know, that's all. Jonathan Papelbon, that's all. Okay.

All right, so we will do an email show next, most likely. So send us some emails at podcast at baseballperspectives.com. Join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild and rate and review the show on iTunes. Please support our sponsor, Playindex at baseballreference.com. Use the coupon code

BP and get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription. We'll be back tomorrow. $30 on one year subscription. We'll be back tomorrow. Alright, where was I? You said hello, and I said hello. Alright, what was I talking about?

Uh, nothing. You don't know. You don't know, because I hadn't said. Right.