The Morning Edition (April 6, 2013)
From Last Night:
- Josh Hamilton goes 0-4 with 2K as his Angels fall to the Rangers in his return to Arlignton
- Gordon and Hosmer lead the way as the Royals pummel the Phillies 13-4
- Zito outduels Westbrook in a 1-0 win over the Cards
- The Reds throw down the gauntlet in the NL with a 15-0 thumping of the Nats
What I’m Watching Today:
- Shelby Miller makes his second big league start as his Cards take on the Giants (4p Eastern)
- Julio Tehran tries to build on his hot spring against the Cubs (7p Eastern)
- Trevor Bauer makes his Tribe debut against Rays youngster Alex Cobb (7p Eastern)
- Clayton Kershaw goes for an encore in LA against AJ Burnett and the Bucs (9p Eastern)
The Big Question
- How long can Chris Davis keep this up?
In 18 PA this season Davis has 4 HR and a .600/.611/1.600 line. Obviously, that pace is a bit unsustainable, but at some point it just becomes ridiculous even in the short run. He’ll get to face Vance Worley tomorrow, against whom he has not recorded a hit in three trips to the plate. Davis, as it appears, will win the New English D “Race to 1.0 WAR” very shortly. He has 0.9 as of this writing. Today, MLB on Fox begins their final season in which they will terrorize our Saturdays by blacking games out. Starting in 2014, MLB.TV won’t go dark on Saturday afternoons. Luckily, the Tigers play the Yankees, so Fox will let me watch. Additionally of note, New English D will publish our usually Saturday edition of The Nine later today with a focus, likely, on ballpark food.
For your reading pleasure, below is a strike zone plot of Prince Fielder’s at bat against Boone Logan from Friday. Observe the location of the pitch that Fielder hit into the seats. A pitcher should reasonably be able to assume that if he misses the strike zone by that much that he should be safe from such outcomes.
So Shawn Kelley tried this when he faced Fielder in the 7th. I would not recommend this.
2013 Preseason Awards: American League Rookie of the Year
Yesterday I wrote on the subject of NL Rookie of the Year and pointed out a good preseason candidate is a talented player with a clear path to playing time. Such a player is actually pretty hard to find in both leagues and I found it to be tougher in the American League.
Surprisingly tough. So tough, in fact, that I violated one of the conditions and went for talent alone along with what I believe to be a path to meaningful playing time even if it isn’t full playing time.
There are a ton of great prospects on AL teams, but this one should be the best in 2013. Heck, he should have been up a year ago.
And the award will go to…
Wil Myers (RF – Rays)
Myers was the centerpiece of the Royals’ trade for James Shields this offseason and I was among those to believe it was a foolish move for Kansas City. Myers has the ability to hit and hit for power while playing solid defense in a corner outfield spot. And he’s ready to do it now. He’s not a prospect who needs a lot of seasoning, he’s one who’s ready to contribute.
He should do so this season for the Rays whenever they decide to call him up. It will happen in one of three ways. A key player on the MLB club will get hurt and they’ll need him, he’ll sign a team friendly extension, or June 1st will roll around and his arbitration clock will get pushed back a season. At any rate, Myers figures to get four months or more in the show this year and they should be good enough to earn him some hardware.
He hit 37 homeruns last season to go with his .316/.389/.602 slash line between AA and AAA. He’s a little heavy on the strikeouts but balances it with a lot of walks too. The typical comparison for Myers is a right handed Jay Bruce.
And he’s just 22 years old. Myers is not just the best prospect on the Rays, he’s one of the five or six best in the entire sport. Jurickson Profar is another AL prospect who comes to mind for the 2013 season, but his path to playing time is blocked by All-Stars while Myers is blocked by Matt Joyce, Kelly Johnson, or Luke Scott. Mostly, he’s blocked by service time.
The power hitting outfielder should get a few swings in the minor leagues this Spring before getting the call to St. Pete, but once he’s there he will be there to stay. Myers looks to pair nicely with Evan Longoria in the middle of the Rays order for years to come.
Barring injury, either to Myers or to one of the players keeping Profar out of the lineup in Texas, the smart money is on Myers to claim the Rookie of the Year honors.
2013 Season Preview: American League Central
While certain national baseball writers seem to think Kansas City and Cleveland adding five or six wins to their 2012 totals will somehow help them unseat a Tigers team that added four or five wins of their own this offseason, the overwhelming evidence points to a third straight Tigers division title.
Things can go wrong, but the Tigers are far and away the safest bet to win any division in baseball again this season.
Here’s how STT sees it. [Division Rank. Team (2013 W/L Prediction, 2013 Preseason Power Ranking)]
5. Minnesota Twins (65-97, 27)
The Twins are looking down the road at a crop of exciting position prospects who are a few years away. They traded away both of their center fielders and signed scrap heap pitching. The plan is to wait it out, and that’s what they are doing. The Twins might not be baseball’s worst team, but on paper, they are certainly the worst in the AL Central.
4. Cleveland Indians (71-91, 26)
To be clear, I locked in these rankings and projections days before the Indians signed Michael Bourn, so this reflects a lower opinion of the Indians that is appropriate. The numbers reflect my views in the days before Spring Training, so for consistency’s sake, I’ll stand by them. The Indians added Bourn, Swisher, Stubbs, and Reynolds on offense and Myers, Bauer, and Dice-K in the rotation this offseason and should be better in 2013 for it. I kind of like their positions players and would like them more if they had one elite bat to put in the middle. But the pitching just can’t cut it. They have plenty of guys I like at the back end of a rotation, but no one I like for the top in 2013.
3. Kansas City Royals (76-86, 23)
Listen, the Royals didn’t get that much better. They added Ervin Santana who was terrible last year. They added Jeremy Guthrie who is okay. They added Wade Davis who could be solid and James Shields who is very good. At most, they added ten wins to their 2012 total. At most. That’s if Santana and Guthrie and Davis all contribute like legitimate major leaguers and if they all stay healthy. Don’t get me wrong, Hosmer should be better and Perez should hopefully stay healthy, but man is that a lot of qualifications. The Royals are no one’s whipping boy anymore, but let’s cool it with the excitement from national writers who somehow think adding James Shields changes everything. Guys, Wil Myers would have been just as big an upgrade over Jeff Francoeur.
2. Chicago White Sox (83-79, 16)
The White Sox didn’t do much to improve upon the 2012 roster and that team was the picture of average. So they shall be again. They over performed my expectations last year because I bet on certain players to continue washing up instead of returning to form. This team is a 78-85 win team at its finest and can certainly hang around if the Tigers let them.
1. Detroit Tigers (94-68, 2)
The Tigers return the same team that made it to the World Series in 2012 after underperforming all season, but they also add Victor Martinez, Torii Hunter, and full seasons of Omar Infante and Anibal Sanchez. They do so without losing anything of substance. If the Tigers remain as healthy as their opponents, they should win the division easily in 2013. Their pitching staff is head and shoulders above the Twins, Royals, and Indians while remaining significantly better than the White Sox and are serious contenders for the title of baseball’s best staff. Certainly things can go wrong, but they would have to go a lot more wrong for the Tigers than for every other team for this to be much of a race.
AL Central Cy Young: Justin Verlander (snooze)
AL Central MVP: Justin Verlander
Most Potentially Pivotal Player: Eric Hosmer
Storyline that Will Surprise Us: The Tigers won’t stumble out of the gate or down the stretch and will make it easy on their fans.
Boldest of the Bold: Joe Mauer will find his power again and hit 20 HRs.
2013 Preseason Power Rankings: 30-21
Spring Training begins this week in Florida and Arizona as all thirty MLB teams do their best to prepare themselves for another season. That preparation will be critical to their respective successes and failures, but before anyone gets hurt or anyone has a breakout season, this is how SABR Toothed Tigers thinks the league stacks up.
30. Houston Astros
There isn’t a whole lot to say about the Astros other than that they are a very bad team. The new front office has worked well over the last year to restock the farm system and get them on a path to rebuilding but that has come at the expense of the clubs won-loss record for 2013. The Opening Day payroll will be south of $30 million and the Astros could easily lose another 100 games. The future looks much better for the Astros, but the now is just terrible.
29. Miami Marlins
Entering the 2012 season the Marlins had a new stadium and a revamped club. The ownership committed to higher payrolls and more competitive clubs, but after a rocky start to the season, the Marlins began selling off pieces and completed the process with a full on fire sale in the offseason. Almost nothing remains. The Marlins ownership didn’t like the less than stellar attendance and they decided they weren’t going to pay for a team that didn’t sell tickets. The 2013 Marlins are Giancarlo Stanton and players who are either too young to make any money or two broken to get other offers.
28. Colorado Rockies
Last season was a disaster for the Rockies. They lost Tulowitzki for most of the season and their pitching staff was terrible. A healthy Tulo will help the team and the offense should be okay, but the pitching staff isn’t much of anything. They didn’t do anything to improve the club during the offseason and the return of Tulowitzki can only do so much. With other teams in the NL West adding to their arsenals, the Rockies won’t find room to improve.
27. Minnesota Twins
The Twins pursued two offseason strategies this winter. First, they traded all of their centerfielders. Span to the Nationals and Revere to the Phillies. Second, they signed every pitcher they could find that is coming off an injury hoping for the best. On the face of it, those moves won’t do much for the 2013 team, which could easily lose 95 or more games, but these moves have helped stock an already interesting farm system. The Twins are a couple years away from getting back into things, but they have enough pieces that we shouldn’t expect them to be terrible in an unwatchable sort of way.
26. Cleveland Indians
The Tribe added Nick Swisher and others in free agency and picked up Drew Stubbs and Trevor Bauer via trade during the offseason to plug up holes in their team, but their main issue is starting pitching and they didn’t do enough to turn themselves into contenders. The Indians have some exciting young position players, but when you’re counting on Swisher to be your top offensive player you’re probably too short on offense and when Justin Masterson is your ace, you’re definitely short on pitching. Editors Note: This ranking was determined as of Saturday Feb. 9th, prior to the beginning of Spring Training. The signing of Michael Bourn is not reflected here.
25. Chicago Cubs
The Cubs are moving in the right direction with Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer now at the helm and I like their starting pitching for 2013 and beyond. The offense isn’t much to look at and the bullpen isn’t really anything. If you’re hoping for an end to the curse, you should probably shift your hopes until next season.
24. Seattle Mariners
The Mariners have Felix Hernandez and a lot of young starting pitching coming, but 2013 won’t be their year. They tried to improve their lineup with a bunch of broken pieces, but it’s going to be a rough offensive season even with shorter fences at Safeco. This is a team that can prevent runs but not one that can score them.
23. Kansas City Royals
The Royals place on this list might seem low, but there are still a lot of problems with this team despite adding James Shields. They probably added a few wins with pitching upgrades, but the offense didn’t improve much other than counting on bounce back seasons. The Royals will probably have more wins than other teams ahead of them on this list, but that will be a function of playing two teams on this list ranked 26th or lower 19 times each. The Royals probably won’t be embarrassing, but I don’t think they’ll be good either.
22. San Diego Padres
The Padres have some good young players in their system and the fences are coming in at Petco Park, but they didn’t do much to improve their team. In a tough division, it’s hard to see them being much better than they were in 2012 especially with their starting catcher spending 50 games on suspension for PED use.
21. Pittsburgh Pirates
In my 2012 Season in Review series I told you I thought the Pirates would finally break the under .500 curse and turn into a winning team for the first time in two decades, but I’ve been talking myself out of it ever since. I think they might still win over 81 games this year, but I think that will be a function of luck and timing rather than true talent. I think the Pirates are the 21st best MLB team, but they might still finish with a record above average.
Come back tomorrow and Thursday for 2013 Preseason Power Rankings 20-11 and 10-1.ets.
2012 Season in Review: American League Central
The AL Central produced the MVP, pennant winner, and Cy Young runner up in 2012, but other than that, it wasn’t the most exciting year for baseball’s most made fun of division. Sure the Tigers boast a lot of stars and Phil Humber threw a perfect game, but that didn’t earn them a lot of respect.
Here’s how the final standings shook out:
And this is how it played out over time:
Followed by my 2013 projections:
And a final look at my 2012 grades:
AL Central MVP: Miguel Cabrera
AL Central Cy Young: Justin Verlander
Helping Michael Bourn Find Work
Michael Bourn is still unemployed. He was one of the best players available on the free agent market this year and was one of baseball’s most valuable players in 2012, but he does not have a team lined up for 2013.
Before going any further we can assume that the reason for this is that Bourn wants more money than any team is willing to offer right now and believes that some team will meet his price before the season begins. At some point, a team will either match his price or he will decide to lower his price, which a team will then decide to meet.
That’s a pretty straightforward understanding of how negotiations work. One side or both sides are currently unrealistic about the expectations of the other side. This will change eventually and Bourn will sign, the questions is, with who?
What teams are most likely to pay the most for Bourn?
Bourn is no slouch. He is entering his age 30 season and has posted 4.0 WAR or better in four straight seasons with a 6.4 coming in 2012. He’s an elite defender (career UZR/150 of 11.5 and a UZR of 22.4 in 2012) and baserunner (5 straight years of 40 or more SB) and gets on base at at .340 clip or better.
In terms of straight value, you’re looking at a player who was work between $20 and $30 million last season and figures to be worth at least $15 million or more over each year of a 3 or 4 year deal if he stays healthy. And there is no reason to think he won’t stay healthy.
Throw all of that in a blender with current team rosters and what do you get? A list of teams that might sign Bourn.
Royals (5%):
The Royals probably don’t have the money to swing Bourn, but man do they need him. With two outfield spots filled by Cain and Francoeur, there is a lot of room for improvement. Bourn over Francoeur in 2012 would be worth something like seven wins in the standings. Even if you expect Frenchie to regress upward in 2013, there’s a lot of room to improve on a team that seems like they are committing to going for it over the next two seasons.
Reds (5%):
This only makes sense if the Reds are willing to make Ludwick the highest paid fourth outfielder in baseball. With Choo and Bruce locked into the outfield, this is a long shot but the Reds would benefit greatly from upgrading on defense and at the top of the lineup.
Braves (10%):
The Braves could resign Bourn even after adding Upton. If BJ will move to left to accommodate Bourn, the Braves could put Prado at third and have one of the better lineups in the NL. It might be hard to make that work financially given what some other teams might be willing to offer, but it’s worth exploring for both sides.
Blue Jays (10%):
The Jays are going for it in 2013. That much is clear. They’ve taken on a good amount of payroll through trades over the last couple months, but their outfield is a bit thin. Colby Rasmus is slated to be the everyday centerfielder and he isn’t exactly a picture of consistency. Additionally, Jose Bautista is coming off a wrist injury and Melky Cabrera is plagued by questions of his true ability following a steroid suspension. If the Jays can afford Bourn, he would be a good fit. They probably don’t want to make a four year offer, but if he decides to take a pillow contract, a one year, $18-20 million deal from Toronto might make sense.
Rangers (15%):
The Rangers can and should probably get by with a Martin and Gentry platoon in centerfield, but Bourn would be a nice addition to offset the loss of Josh Hamilton. However, the lineup is already crowded with Andrus, Profar, Olt, and Kinsler, so the Rangers are probably best left to keep their outfield unblocked.
Mets (25%):
The Mets are good fit for Bourn. They need outfield help, presumably have some money to work with and are not that far off from contention. Their rotation has the potential to be great in the coming few seasons and they have a number of players on the roster who could work as compliments to a contending club. They need a couple more core pieces, and a great defensive centerfielder and speed demon would be perfect for them.
White Sox (30%):
The White Sox make a ton of sense for Bourn. De Aza, Viciedo, Rios are capable outfielders on an average team, but they aren’t a group that you imagine would get you to a world series. If Bourn was on the team instead of Viciedo in 2012, they might have beaten out the Tigers for the AL Central. Additionally, Konerko is in the last year of his deal and Dunn has one more after that. A backloaded deal could easily work to make Bourn a piece of the Sox franchise for years to come.
2012 Season in Review: Kansas City Royals
72-90, 3rd in the AL Central
For the last several years the Royals farm system was much talked about as about ready to pay dividends and this year was no different in that people talked about it and it did not deliver. It was another tough year for the Royals.
Alex Gordon is on the cusp of becoming a star (5.9 WAR) and Mike Moustakas (3.5) and Billy Butler (3.2) were none too shabby. Salvador Perez (2.6 in 76 games) was excellent as well, while Alcides Escobar was quite useful (2.6) himself. Unfortunately, the offense stopped there. No one else cracked the 2.0 threshold and Eric Hosmer and Jeff Francoeur combined to post a -2.3 WAR. That was a minus sign. So while five everyday players were very good, two were very bad. Think about it this way, Hosmer and Frenchie combined to erase Escobar’s production.
That wasn’t nice of them.
Kidding aside, it wasn’t the offense that tanked the Royals. It was the pitching. Was it ever the pitching?
Their two best pitchers by WAR, Greg Holland (2.2) and Kevin Herrara (1.9), were both relievers. If you see that on a team’s leaderboard, they were a bad team. Case closed. Their four best starting pitchers combined for a WAR (6.1) lower than Justin Verlander’s. The pitching in Kansas City was a colossal mess.
So that might mean that improving their pitching staff would be a good idea for 2013, and it is. They, however, did it in a silly manner. They sign Guthrie to a 3 year deal who was worth 1.5 wins over 91 innings in 2012, so if you bank on him repeating that (which is not a good bet), he’s a solid addition. They traded for the terrible in 2012, but somewhat good before that Ervin Santana. They also made the big Wil Myers plus for Shields and Davis trade.
Don’t get me wrong, their pitching got better for 2013, but they did so at the cost of the future, and at the cost of not having Wil Myers to improve their offense by 3ish wins. Basically, the Royals pitching staff should add 5-7 wins in 2013, but their offense would have gotten at least 2-3 of those from simply having Myers instead of Francoeur.
They will be better in 2013, but not enough so that we should expect them to be true contenders. If you’re a Royals fan, enjoy yourself because baseball is wonderful, but don’t expect your team to be anything but average.
2012 Grade: D
Early 2013 Projection: 76-86
Royals Talk Themselves Into Something, Rays Take Advantage
On Sunday night, the Royals went for it and Tampa Bay just let them do it. The Royals traded top prospect OF Wil Myers, RHP Jake Odorizzi, LHP Mike Montgomery, and 3B Patrick Leonard to the Rays for James Shields and Wade Davis.
This trade is rich with analytical possibilities, so bear with me here. From an actual value standpoint, it’s hard not to think the Rays robbed the Royals like they hadn’t eaten in weeks. Two years of James Shields at $9 million plus matched with a couple cheap years of Wade Davis followed by some more expensive years of Wade Davis for six years of all of those prospects who will earn the league minimum for the first three years.
Myers is perhaps the best hitting prospect in baseball. Odorizzi is a top arm. Montgomery is risky, but has a high ceiling. Leonard has power.
We know Shields is a great pitcher and Davis is at worst a great reliever and at best a solid starter.
The Rays got more total value, but if the Royals are truly trying to win in 2013, they are taking a risk that they believe will pay off. The Royals will be better in 2013 because of this deal, but they will be worse in the future because of it. That’s a generous way to put it.
But should the Royals have made this choice? They added a very good starting pitcher and a potentially solid starter, but as a result, they will keep the much worse Jeff Francouer in RF instead of Wil Myers. How many wins will that net them? I’ll be generous and call that 4 to 5 wins. That’s certainly not enough to win the division in 2013. And we’ve already decided that after the two years of Shields are over, this deal slants heavily in favor of the Rays.
So why did the Royals do it? Simple, I think. The Royals owners told GM Dayton Moore to win in 2013 or he’d be fired. Therefore, Dayton Moore traded away the future to improve his 2013 chances. All he cares about is 2013. This is a net gain in 2013 and a net loss everywhere else. Moore doesn’t care about that because he has to save his job. That’s the only explanation.
From the Rays side, this is another awesome Rays move. They traded Shields and Davis, but they have a ton of pitching depth and they got two more back. Myers slots into RF this year and the team is better off and cheaper because they can replace Shields in-house in a way that no other team could.
The Rays got four good to great players who cost nothing in exchange for two more expensive pitchers and one is a free agent after 2014.
Bu this deal is also a proven player versus prospect story. Lots of old school people are talking about Shields as a lot more valuable than Myers because he’s a proven guy. But the reality here is much different. Myers may turn out to be a bust, but he’s one of the safest bets as far as prospects go. He’s a young, good position player who hit well in the minors. His bust chances are low relative to other prospects.
Shields has shown he can play in majors for years, but if he blows out his elbow in April, this trade is a disaster. The Royals didn’t take on much less risk. Veterans are risky too. Everything is risky.
This is a bad deal for the Royals. They gave up some of their best prospects including one of the best in the game for a shot at winning in 2013 and 2014, but they didn’t get much better and aren’t close enough to contending for that to even matter. This was a desperate trade by a GM who is on the hot seat.
This is a great deal for the Rays because they can replace Shields and Davis, they saved money, and they get a great young outfielder.
This is all coming from a place in which I love James Shields. I think Shields is one of the most underrated players in the game. Innings eating pitchers with great changeups are my favorite. The Royals got a good one, they just paid way too much after they tricked themselves into thinking that they could contend this season.
Grade (Royals): D, Grade (Rays): A
The Mysterious Eric Hosmer
2012 opened with very high hopes for Royals’ 1B Eric Hosmer. He was coming off a solid four month debut in 2011 and had a monster spring training. Scouts in ST said he looked as good as anyone in baseball at the plate in March.
Hosmer was one of the breakout candidates in baseball in 2012, but that didn’t happen. I was among the fans of Hosmer who saw big things in 2012 and put my money where my mouth was, drafting him 66th overall in my fantasy baseball league, right about where Yahoo! had him ranked. He finished in the 340s.
But we all know that fantasy baseball stats don’t reflect a player’s true performance, so that isn’t enough to tell us Hosmer disappointed. But he did. He posted a -1.1 WAR in 2012 which was among the ten worst in all of baseball among qualified hitters.
Hosmer, the future star, played like Michael Young and Brennan Boesch according to WAR and traditional fantasy stats. Or did he?
I went inside the numbers, and I have no idea what to think. He posted a 1.6 WAR in 2011 in about 75% of a season, so let’s call it a baseline of 2.2 WAR. We would expect him to improve in his second season, so let’s say we’d expect him to put up a 3.0 WAR in 2012.
His true WAR was 4.1 wins below that number. That’s pretty substantial. Let’s try to explain why.
First, UZR doesn’t like his defense (although many expect him to be a top tier gloveman), but it didn’t like his defense much last year. That accounts for maybe 0.5 WAR of the difference.
Hosmer walked more in 2012, but also struckout a bit more. The slash line dropped across the board. The average dropped 60 points, OBP by 30, SLG by more than 100. His BABIP also fell by more than 60 points.
So this would seem to indicate he was making the same amount or more contact, but the contact he was making was substantially worse. Is that true?
His line drive rate is the same and he’s traded 4% of his flyballs for groundballs, but that can’t be it. He hit fewer infield popups. He swung at fewer pitches outside the strikezone.
What happened to Eric Hosmer?
Two explanations emerge. First, Hosmer is hitting the ball just as squarely, but is doing so with substantially less force. I would think that this would result in more popups and fewer line drives, but it’s possible that it doesn’t. Maybe, Hosmer lost power despite getting a year older and a year better.
Or maybe he was extremely unlucky. Maybe he was so unlucky we can’t even believe it. His BABIP dropped dramatically, which is an indicator of luck. But there is skill inside BABIP, maybe that skill deteriorated. We generally think as sample size increases, luck tends to balance out.
But we also know that BABIP takes three years to balance out to the real value. What if Hosmer had the unluckiest of seasons?
It seems unlikely, but we would expect that over the course of many seasons, one player would stand out as supremely unlucky over the course of a season. Wouldn’t simple randomness lead us to at least one strange outlier?
That’s my take. I don’t really know what happened to Eric Hosmer in 2012, but I have images of the 2011 version of him mashing baseballs with tenacity, so I’m not so sure I know what else to think.
Maybe 2013 will provide us with answers. But for now, I’m calling Eric Hosmer’s 2012 season the Unluckiest of All.
Trade Grade: Royals Nab Santana
The Royals really like buying low on starting pitching and they did it again today. Ervin Santana joins the AL Central as Kansas City sends minor league lefty Brandon Sisk the other way to the Angels.
Santana had a very poor season in 2012 and is owed $13 million in 2013, but the Royals were willing to gamble to improve their pitching staff in hopes of becoming a relevant baseball team in one of the weaker divisions in the sport.
He posted a -0.9 WAR this season to go along with his 5.16 ERA and 5.63 FIP. In 2010 and 2011 he was above 2.0 WAR and had ERAs under 4.00 to pair with his very strong 5.8 WAR in 2008.
Santana’s had four 200+ inning seasons in his career and is entering his age 30 season. While I certainly wouldn’t offer him a long term deal, a one year contract is of pretty low risk for someone who can bring some upside and has no-hit stuff when he’s right.
From a player for player standpoint, the risk was worth taking, the real question is if $13 million is worth it for someone coming off such a bad season. Obviously the Royals think 2012 was an outlier and the real Santana is more like the 2010 and 2011 versions. The Angels take the other side.
It’s hard to imagine that this is the best way to spend $13 million this offseason for a club that needs multiple starters to really explode onto the scene, but if they are willing to expand the payroll it’s a risk worth taking.
Bruce Chen, Luis Mendoza, Felipe Paulino, and Danny Duffy are the other four members of the Royals projected rotation at this point, but Chris Volstad and others will enter spring training with their sights on a spot.
Dayton Moore and the rest of the Royals front office needed to target starting pitching this offseason given that their top two pitchers by WAR both came out of the bullpen in 2012. Santana is a risk worth taking if they’re going to increase payroll. If they’re allocating most of their offseason budget on Santana, however, I’d give them a failing grade.
On the Angels side, they got a live body for a player they didn’t want anymore, so you can’t really complain. They’ll likely use some of that Santana cash to bid heavily on Zach Greinke.
Free Agency starts Saturday, so stay tuned for updates.
New English D 