Examining the trade market: Is there a deal out there for the Red Sox?

Could a switch in Sox be in the cards for either one of these two?

With a less than thrilling FA pitching market, the Red Sox may be inclined to explore some trade options in order to fill out their 2012 rotation. Some of the names mentioned here the Red Sox have kicked tires on and some they haven’t – but they’re all worth taking a closer look at.

John Danks – Danks has been a pitcher who more or less received the ‘ace’ tag over the years and to be honest, I’m not really sure why. That’s not to say he’s a bad pitcher. He’s a good pitcher, butt not much more than that. His strikeout rate has been good. His walk rate is OK. His FIP and xFIP were good last year at 3.82 and 3.79, respectively. Not for nothing, he’s a pretty projectable pitcher which in and of itself makes him a valuable commodity. In a market saturated in uncertainty, he’s a reasonable target.

The problem is White Sox GM Kenny Williams’ asking price. You’re basically buying 3 WAR which isn’t anything to shake a stick at, but when you take a look at what it’s going to cost in terms of prospects, it doesn’t make much sense considering that… well, he’s basically the same pitcher as Edwin Jackson.

Now, I’m not even going to slightly pretend that’s my argument. David Cameron over at Fangraphs – who is way smarter than yours truly, ran a fascinating piece about a month ago comparing the two that can be read here.

Long story short, they basically have the same walk and strikeout percentages, nearly identical GB%, ERA-, FIP-, and xFIP-. Yikes. If you want Danks, sign Jackson. Why give up the prospects?

Gavin Floyd – Floyd has been the subject of debate for saberists everywhere thanks largely to the volatility of his ‘luck stats.’ He had what we thought to be a mirage-like big break out in 2008 on the back of a ridiculous .256 BABIP. We THOUGHT that would have made him a prime candidate for regression, but alas, that didn’t happen. In fact, his skills improved in spite of his funky ERA numbers. The next year, his skills sustained him yet again, only to be bitten by the same BABIP that helped him so much in ’08, posting a .325 mark. This past year, it seemed to be more of the same, with everything normalizing minus a strangely low LOB%. I guess you maybe chalk that up to not pitching well out of the stretch? Who the heck knows at this point!

Either way , Floyd is a pretty good pitcher and for the right deal, could be had. Despite the volatile swings in luck that he’s had, its all about his skills, of which have been rock solid over the past three-four seasons. While Danks has settled into a more predictable statistical groove, it might be Floyd who’s the more consistent and projectable of the two. Who would have thought that, right? With a year or two of control, I think he’s got some significant value in a trade – the kind of value that if there’s a robust market for his services, the Red Sox might find themselves out-bid rather quickly. There’s a huge question after that whether the Sox would have the pieces to make it happen. I think Floyd has the chance to go at a fair price, I just don’t know if it’s a price the Red Sox farm system can afford right now.

Wandy Rodriguez – I’m not very big on this idea at all, but not because the price in prospects would be too costly or because I think Wandy’s a bad pitcher. At the end of the day, it comes down to the size of his contract. Whomever would get him would have to pay him $10 million this year and then $13 million next year. To a team like the Yankees or Red Sox, that’s not that big of a deal, but the tricky part is the option that’s attached to said contract. When he originally negotiated his agreement with the Astros, he ended up with a $13 million team option for 2014. The catch was that if he was traded, that club option would then turn into a player option. Now you’re looking at a 3 year, $36 million deal for Wandy, PLUS the prospects you’d give up to get him. Even if the prospects price is small, the contract still makes it more trouble than it’s worth considering the market. There haven’t been appreciable drops in his numbers and outside of a goofy HR/FB spike this year, so truth be told – there’s nothing about him that leaves even remote cause for worry about him heading into this season. Chances are on the open market – Wandy would command that kind of deal. I just don’t see the point of shipping quality prospects to the Astros IN ADDITION TO paying for him when you could likely grab a Kuroda/Oswalt for a similar price. I know some folks have been floating the idea of the Astros eating some of his salary, but I have a hard time imagining that given how barren the pitching landscape is right now. It pains me to say that – especially considering the fact that this dude absolutely exterminates left handed hitters. However, I wouldn’t walk away from this deal entirely – if the Red Sox go the dumpster diving route and figure they need more help by the trade deadline – Wandy’s going to a guy to keep an eye on again this year. The Astros might be willing to eat the remainder of this year’s salary owed, meaning the winning bidder could nab Wandy on a one year deal with a player option. 2 Years, $26 million seems like a way better deal than 3 and $36. Just saying.

Joe Saunders – Saunders was just non-tendered by the Diamondbacks, so he’s no longer a trade option, but whatever. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t scream NO~! to the Red Sox on this. Even if it falls on deaf ears, at least I did what I could, ya know. Anyway, this guy’s inexplicably being linked to the Red Sox likely due to his 3.69 ERA that traditionalist knuckle draggers in the Boston sports media probably drool over. He’s posted nearly a 10% HR/FB% in three straight years. He posts bad numbers despite the high LOB%. The FIP and xFIP numbers suggest that his traditional statistics paint a very dishonest portrait of who he is. Low strike out ratio, high HR/9 and has a career BABIP that’s all over the place each year. He’s at best a #5 in the AL East and would be worth a dumpster dive, but I wouldn’t pay him very much. The idea that the Diamondbacks considered shopping him was kind of funny. Alas, they wizened up and didn’t. There was a reason for that.

Gio Gonzalez – Gio’s a guy who’s obviously a good pitcher but has evolved into this year’s ‘sexy pick’ among baseball nerds everywhere. I’m not as sold – and I feel – with good reason. The major area of concern is his uncomfortably high walk rate.My worry with the walk rate is that if his control leaves him even a little bit, there’s potential for the wheels to come flying off. All things being considered, that riskiness puts him right in line with Oswalt (who’s back issues can’t be ignored) and Kuroda (old man) as a good – albeit risky option.  I’m rather neutral about the whole “A’s pitchers elsewhere” thing because his home and road splits are pretty consistent. I do think the walk rate would come into play more in the AL East through, where the batters you’re facing have more power across the board. His major benefit is that he’s young,cost-controlled and has an awesome strikeout rate. If you’re a team that’s not interested in high-priced free agents and have some prospects to burn, he’s a worthwhile guy to look at. I think if the Red Sox decide to go for the jugular and get the best guy they can – then I think Floyd is a better fit than Gio, although it’s hard to knock folks on this choice. I just don’t know how comfortable I would be giving up considerable young talent when it appears that Gonzalez might be walking a tight rope. The last scary piece is the asking price, which A’s GM Billy Beane has set at a completely stupid level. So stupid, in fact, that he asked for Mike Stanton in a proposed deal with the Marlins yesterday. I can’t blame him for asking – but still. The Red Sox match up well with the A’s for a trade, as the A’s are more or less in a holding pattern until they get a new stadium. They’d be an organization that would be interested at high-upside prospects at the lower levels of a team’s farm system, so the fit seem natural with the Sox. I just don’t know how comfortable I’d be giving up that kind of a haul for someone as dicey as Gonzalez. We’ll see.

Jonathon Niese –  Niese’s surface numbers leave little to get excited about.  He posted a 4.40 ERA last year and a 1.41 WHIP. That seems like barely good enough for a #5 starter never mind one in our division. Right? Oh boy, no. A look at the peripherals show a pretty good pitcher in the making here. He was 18% above the league average in strikeouts and although that seems high given his minor league track record, his velocity gained 1 mph last year. It MIGHT be sustainable. Even if it isn’t, a regression to a 6-7 K/9 isn’t bad considering what the Sox are shopping for. I’d expect his high groundball rate to fall a bit, but his SIERA and xFIP suggest that he might have been a pretty unlucky pitcher last year, meaning that the GB% might NOT fall. He had a high .324 BABIP that seemed to hurt him quite a bit as well. Combine that with a not-so-hot LOB% of 67% and that pretty much tells us why his surface stats were so high last year.

I like his skill set in Fenway largely because of his high GB%, the fact that he doesn’t walk a lot of batters and best yet – he’s gaining velocity. That paints an interesting portrait for sure.  And hey – he’s had a better LD% than Cliff Lee. That’s nothing to shake a stick at! He’s young, cost-controlled, and super-under the radar. He’s arbitration eligible this year to boot, so perhaps the more cost-conscious version of the Mets decide to pass on giving him a raise this year and begin seriously looking for a new home for him. Who knows.

Now the flip side of all that is that he’s developed a bit of a reputation for being injury prone, thus he’ds never outlasted 160 IP in his career. That’s not good. However, most of his injury worries has been with his obliques and his hamstring. The good news to that is no damage to the arm. There is a risk involved, but he’d cost peanuts in terms of dollars and I can’t imagine the price on him being sky-high right now. In comparison to dumping the money down on an Oswalt or Kuroda, he’s a much more worth while risk at this point. He makes a lot of sense from a lot of different angles.

Anyone you all think is worth kicking tires on? If so, who

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Incoherent MLB layoff musings and random rambling

Before Red Sox fans head for life rafts like rich people on the Titanic, maybe it’s worth taking an aside to point out that um – the Yankees aren’t playing particularly well, either.

Despite Boston’s seeming implosion over the past few weeks, the Yankees are still only up 3.5 games as of today. They’ve lost 6 of their last 9 games and perhaps most worrisome – the man they need to have pitch well – CC Sabathia – isn’t.

Sabathia was terrible in August, sporting a 4.68 ERA in 42.1 IP and has a WHIP over his past 6 starts sitting over 1.60. He gave up 50 hits in August and is well on the way to eclipsing that this month – nearly 12 more hits than he’s given up in any other month in the season.

Wallace Matthew of ESPN.com speculates whether the new six-man rotation the Yankees have employed is to blame and maybe he’s onto something:

“Sabathia worked on four days’ rest in 16 of his first 22 starts. The results were a 14-5 record and a 2.62 ERA. Since then, the numbers are 5-3 and 3.89. More alarmingly, he has allowed 81 hits in 69 1/3 innings, an average of 10.5 hits per nine innings pitched. “

But at the end of the day, it’s neither here nor there. The Yankees lack of pitching depth appears to be catching up to them. Needless to say, it’s the same song we’ve been hearing in Boston for a little while now.

The reality is that while the Red Sox and Yankees have really good teams, they also have some big holes. While it’s hard to decipher through the media maelstrom whether or not the Sox and Yanks have bigger holes than the other contending teams, I think it could be reasonably concluded that the other contenders closed the gap considerably, if not surpassed the AL East monsters at the trade deadline.

I’d even go as far as to say that I don’t think either team is the best in baseball. In fact, they might not even be the best teams in the AL right now.

Playoff lore is littered with teams that seem to find their groove at the right time, and if that’s any indication of what the future might hold, then maybe we should all be wary of the Detroit Tigers, who have torn through the second half of the season and – if the standings hold through to the end of the season – will face the Sox in the Divisional Series.

Justin Verlander is a man among boys, which we knew already. What we didn’t know is that Doug Fister would turn out to be one of this season’s best acquisitions. Since being traded to the Tigers in July, Fister’s gone 5-1 with a 2.28 ERA and even recorded a 13-strikeout game against the Cleveland Indians. He was having a good year under the radar in Seattle already, but I don’t even know if even Doug Fister’s mom would have seen this coming. All of a sudden, the Tigers look like a tough match up for anyone.

The Rangers are doing what they do – hit lots and lots of baseballs and pitch well enough to make you tread with caution, but also speculate what the world would be like with a dominant pitcher or two in their rotation. With nothing reasonably priced out on the trade market, they decided to substantially beef up the bullpen adding dominant middle relief arms Koji Uehara and Mike Adams to go along with the already potent Neftali Feliz, Darren O’Day and Darren Oliver. Beefy bullpens can lead to big Octobers. Could the Rangers be the team to beat in the AL once again this year?

The real eye-opener for me this year however, is the depth of the National League field. For the first time in forever, I feel like the two most balanced teams heading into the playoffs are both NL ball clubs. The Milwaukee Brewers already have as potent a middle of the order as there is in baseball with Rickie Weeks, Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun and Corey Hart. They’ve fielded a balanced starting rotation and added depth to their bullpen by acquiring Fransisco Rodriguez from the Mets in June. Since then, they’ve run away from a seemingly competitive NL Central pack and have turned the race into a virtual cakewalk.

Not to be outdone, the Phillies went out and finally got that bat they needed, adding Hunter Pence at the deadline. While they might have a few holes here and there in the ‘pen, it might not really matter as Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels will certainly drive them deep enough into ballgames where it might not matter too much.

I’m not ready to jump on the Diamondbacks bandwagon yet, but I wasn’t ready to ride along with the Rockies in 2007, the Rays in 2008 and the Giants in 2010 and well, look where that got me. The Braves are lurking in the shadows as well. The Braves probably have the best bullpen in the field and solid starting pitching, but it remains to be seen whether this team can put up the runs they need to on a consistent basis.

In years past, it’s been kind of easy to distinguish between the real contenders and the pretenders. This year seems to be a lot more ambiguous and that the gap seems to have been substantially leveled – especially due to some shrewd moves at the deadline by the Brewers, Phillies and Tigers.

There’s a lot more balance this year and that’s good for baseball, but not for the Red Sox and Yankees, who may find themselves both being bounced earlier than anticipated.

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