My Philosophical Problem With The Deal
Not surprisingly, Jack threw water on my theory about the Morrow-League trade, stating outright that these deals were two separate, unrelated moves. I will take his word for it – he’s been honest enough as a GM to have earned that.
So, if we strike down my theory that this deal was an extension of the Lee trade and reject the notion that this is a setup for another, better deal (which I just find very unlikely), then the obvious conclusion is that the Mariners simply do not have much faith that Brandon Morrow will be an effective starting pitcher. This trade is essentially a bet against Morrow’s future value, with the team trading out the best case scenario (he succeeds as a starter) for a better probability at a lesser return.
If you believe that Morrow is a reliever, then preferring League makes a lot of sense. They both do the same thing well – throw really hard – but League does it with a sinker that is more effective than Morrow’s four seam fastball. League is a better reliever than Morrow. If you significantly discount or eliminate the possibility that Morrow will succeed as a starter, then this swap makes sense.
But that’s my problem with this. No one knows how Brandon Morrow is going to develop. He’s basically still a prospect, having been jerked around so many times that his development has been stunted significantly. We can try to make educated guesses about the likelihood of his success in the rotation, based on his pitch types, command, durability, and other assorted assessments. But, in the end, none of us know what is going to happen. He could flame out and never amount to anything. He could win multiple Cy Young Awards. He could end up anywhere in between.
This trade is a specific bet against Morrow’s development. In stock market terms, the M’s are shorting Brandon Morrow. Maybe they have enough information about him to believe that this is a good idea, but it’s a departure from the type of roster building that they’ve been successful with – giving themselves options and flexibility based on an unpredictable future.
Since Zduriencik got hired, the Mariners have made moves that do not require a specific opinion to be justified in order for the move to work. They’ve added players at prices that are relatively low compared to the potential return, so that even if the move doesn’t work, it was a gamble worth taking. They didn’t know that David Aardsma was going to take a step forward, but they put themselves in a position to let him do so without needing him to in order to justify giving up Fabian Williamson. The cost was so low that he could not work out and it wouldn’t hurt them. They gave themselves an opportunity, but a specific outcome was not necessary.
The same is true of almost every transaction the team has made under Zduriencik. Russ Branyan didn’t have to hit 30 home runs to earn his salary. Franklin Gutierrez didn’t have to be a +30 defensive center fielder to be worth giving up J.J. Putz. Cliff Lee doesn’t have to win the Cy Young to be worth a trio of okay prospects.
For this trade to be a good idea, though, Brandon Morrow has to fail as a starting pitcher. If he goes to Toronto and becomes a quality starting pitcher, you lose, no matter how well Brandon League pitches out of the bullpen. This time, the M’s are betting on a specific result to justify the trade.
This is what Bill Bavasi often did. In fact, this move reminds me a bit of the Rafael Soriano-Horacio Ramirez swap. The M’s were going to trade Soriano, come hell or high water, because they didn’t like his make-up and his history of arm problems. They expected his arm to fall off and so they shipped him off for a lesser player, believing that they’d be better off with something than nothing. Of course, League is far, far more talented than Ramirez, and this deal is a lot more justifiable than that debacle was, but the gamble against a talented pitcher is the same. The Mariners needed Soriano to break down for that deal to make sense, and the M’s need Morrow to fail as a starter for this one to make sense.
Betting on a specific outcome is not how this team was built. We cannot know the future, so the best way to build a team is to give yourself as many good options as possible, then react to what actually does happen. Jack has done this exceptionally well, which is why this move is so puzzling. The team has continually made moves where they took guys with question marks and gave them opportunities. This time, they took a guy with question marks and decided that he wasn’t worth an opportunity, selling for a price that essentially values him as a failure.
This move could work out for the M’s. I’m a known skeptic of Morrow’s abilities, and I believe there’s a pretty good chance his combination of health problems, lack of command, and problems getting LH hitters out will eventually land him back in the bullpen. That could certainly happen. That may even be the most likely outcome. But we don’t know that Morrow will fail as a starter, and this trade presupposes that knowledge. It needs that to happen for this deal to not look bad.
And whenever you put yourself in a position where you need a player to either completely succeed (or fail, in this case) in order to justify the acquisition, there’s a good chance that you’re taking on too much risk. In some cases, the reward might be worth the risk, as I think you can argue is the case with the Lee and Bradley deals. In this case, though, the reward is a relief pitcher. A good relief pitcher, but still, a relief pitcher.
That’s not much reward. If the M’s are right, they get a good arm out of the bullpen who struggles to throw strikes. If they’re wrong, they just gave up a young, power arm in a rotation that is not overflowing with young, power arms. Even if they believe they are right, the costs of being wrong are really high. They have to be right. And that makes this a deal that I just can’t be a fan of.
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Baseball Think Factory’s Dan Szymborski likes this trade from both sides. I can’t say I care one way or another. It looks like a challenge trade and I really think we are over valuing Morrow’s potential. Zduriencik has shown a very good eye for talent throughout his career and I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.
It’s still been one of the best off seasons I’ve had to follow in years.
It is okay to believe that Jack has a great eye for talent and will make some questionable moves from time to time.
This is a questionable trade. You don’t have to be a huge Morrow fan – Lord knows I’m not, and have been writing for several years about his flaws – to see the obvious downside to this move.
You have to think that the chance Morrow sticks as a starter is very, very low (probably 10% or less) to make this deal. And unless the M’s have a crystal ball, that’s not a percentage I’m comfortable with.
Dave, how much do you think the time factor affected this trade? Jack seems to want someone who will be effective this year and League seems more likely to fit that bill.
Taken at face value, I am on the fence. But if you believe that Jack and Don did not have faith in Morrow as a starter and would have had him in the bullpen, don’t they need to evaluate his worth on what they think they would get out of him?
If he was going to be a reliever here, then his value to the M’s would be less than if they thought he would be a starter. No?
Well, at some point she is comfortable enough to fart in front of you…
Yes, I went there.
I really think that’s the situation here though. Our GM isn’t a freaky combination of Beane, Beelzebub, Epstein, Dr. Manhatton, Einstein, and Seward. This is a normal baseball move, not a horrible one, and obviously not one of the fantastic trades we’re used to. It may be a mistake, it may bite us in the ass, but it isn’t going to kill our chances next year.
I’m just glad that this has happened late enough that we aren’t freaking out about it, Z has earned enough love that we aren’t going to freak out when something natural happens.
There are a few takes on this that make sense to me…
1. League is more likely to add 1+ win to the 2010 Mariners than Morrow, and at this point we’re looking to add wins with less risk rather than more (Bradley is risky, Branyan is pretty likely to come back and he’s risky, Snell, etc…).
2. If GMZ and company decided that Morrow has a 90% chance of being a mediocre reliever, a 5% chance of being an ace reliever, and a 5% chance of being a MOR starter in 2010, is he really that much of an asset? We have to assume that the Mariners front office has more information available on him than we do. Comparing it to the Soriano/Ramirez swap is not a very good comparison I think. We’re getting Soriano in this deal and giving up something like… Andrew Miller. Miller has potential, but Soriano is much more likely to be a contributor in 2010.
3. We have a slew of .5-1 WAR starters, and it’s hard to project Morrow to be much more than that. Whereas League is a .5-1.5 WAR reliever and who he’s replacing in the bullpen is probably replacement level. On average this move probably makes us ~.5-1 win better in 2010 and we also sold off some risk. What we’re giving up is the chance of Morrow breaking out.
Let’s say there’s a 25% chance Morrow is a 3-win starter and a 75% chance he’s a .5-win starter. That averages out to about 1 WAR. How much worse than that is Doug Fister? Maybe .5 WAR on average?
League, on the other hand, replaces, well, one of the replacement level guys. He’s probably 25% chance of .25 WAR, 50% chance of .75 WAR, and 25% chance of 1.5 WAR. That averages out to about .85 WAR and is about .85 WAR above the next highest guy.
League adds only a little average value to 2010 Mariners, but takes away some variance.
Those are my takes. I’m not a huge fan of the deal, but I can see where the FO might be coming from.
Manhattan. I knew that felt wrong typing it.
Would Zduriencik be the type of GM to move a player when he didn’t have to so they can get a shot with another organization?
I think that’s the only explanation for letting go of Langerhans and re-signing him. However, I don’t think that’s the case in this situation. It might be, however, if Morrow asked for a trade.
Yeah, I agree with you on this, Dave. I felt like 2010 would be the year when we’d finally find out how good Morrow could be as a starter.
I’ve got to think that Jack plans to sign a veteran SP which is why Morrow was expendable. Snell isn’t a sure bet to succeed either and I’d be more comfortable with RRS as our #4 and Snell (or whoever emerges from the rest of the pack) at #5.
I think this trade makes great sense.
League has better numbers than Morrow and knows exactly what his role will be with the team. I know Morrow has been bounced back and forth between starter and reliever but to me thats simply because he’s been pretty ineffective. In house we already have at least three guys vying for the 5th rotation spot and I don’t see anyway Morrow would pencil in any higher than that.
As has been pointed out by everybody, it’s no gurantee that Aardsma or Lowe are going to have seasons like they did last year. I just think League does more by strengthening the bullpen than Morrow does as a giant question mark.
Leaving aside starter vs reliever, I don’t see much question that League is a better pitcher than Morrow. Past and projected metrics of BB%, GB%, LD% bear this out. I can easily see JackZ preferring a solid setup man to a questionable starter.
I think we’re disappointed that this isn’t a steal for us but rather an equitable trade which could go either way. I’m willing to wait for the final team makeup but right now I feel pretty good about the 2010 bullpen.
Dingbatman and lailaihei stole my thunder, but it seems to me that Zduriencik wants as few question marks on the 2010 team as possible, considering that he is already gambling on the effectiveness of the duo at C, the LF situation, possibly the 1B situation, the back end of the starting rotation, and the uncertain health of a number of players. This move shores up the bullpen.
That’s pretty much exactly what I was thinking lailaihei. This seems to have we’re going at in 2010 written all over it and League is definitely the more certain quantity. Also in the long run there’s at least a small chance Chavez amounts to something which has to partially off set the risk Morrow develops into a quality starter. Still not saying we should have necessarily given up on him yet, but it makes sense in a win in 2010 context.
Dave, how much do you think the time factor affected this trade?
Some, certainly. But while the team should be discounting future value, they shouldn’t be giving it away. You don’t cash out your 401k to buy a new car, even though the car gets you places and the investment does not.
don’t they need to evaluate his worth on what they think they would get out of him?
No. They need to evaluate his worth on what might happen, not on what they think will happen. It’s fine to have an opinion, but we have to know the limits of our opinions. Once we start deciding we know what is going to happen, we start making mistakes.
We have a slew of .5-1 WAR starters, and it’s hard to project Morrow to be much more than that. Whereas League is a .5-1.5 WAR reliever and who he’s replacing in the bullpen is probably replacement level.
Sorry, but you can’t pull this trick. The loser of the fight for the #5 spot goes to the bullpen. They’re replacing the same pitchers. The crop of available starters on the roster are not better than the crop of available relievers. The guys fighting for the #5 spot in the rotation and the bullpen are the same guys.
One has to separate “good” from “sensible” or “risk-neutral” or other value terms when assessing trades. Perhaps when taking the Cliff Lee probable one-year term with the M’s into account, the unpredictable time-value of Morrow becomes too risky if Jack is trying to strike while the iron is hot. If he steers the team into the playoffs now and builds the fanbase enough he adds value without the risk of waiting on Morrow’s maturation. Or perhaps he thinks Morrow’s development is inherently too much risk in itself given his seriously messed up development since he was drafted.
In house we already have at least three guys vying for the 5th rotation spot and I don’t see anyway Morrow would pencil in any higher than that.
This argument doesn’t make any sense. Someone please explain to me why you’re totally fine with Ian Snell being handed the #4 spot in the rotation but Brandon Morrow is expendable because you have Doug Fister.
Seriously, how do you value Snell higher than Morrow? They have the same strengths and weaknesses, only Morrow is better at the good stuff.
The team didn’t have a spot for him on the 25-man roster when they non-tendered him, but they do now. He also signed for 525k, so that’s a plus.
@d_a_cameron
Feeling that Bradley trade means Saunders is traded/heads to AAA. Part-time LF/defensive replacement role better filled by Langerhans.
Sorry, but you can’t pull this trick. The loser of the fight for the #5 spot goes to the bullpen. They’re replacing the same pitchers. The crop of available starters on the roster are not better than the crop of available relievers. The guys fighting for the #5 spot in the rotation and the bullpen are the same guys.
I think those guys are more effective relative to their group as starters rather than relievers. Jakubauskas, for instance, is a decent enough long-man just because he can throw a lot of innings, but relative to other relievers he’s replacement level. Throw him into a starting role, though, and he puts up slightly better than above-replacement level numbers. The same goes for the similar strike-throwing low-stuff guys that would fill either role.
You also have to take into account the fact that they would be pitching much lower leverage situations as relievers than starters. League will be pitching high leverage situations and bumping Kelley or Lowe down to mid-low leverage, bolstering our whole bullpen.
Frankly, I don’t know if this is a good trade or not. When discussing any decision, we always want to know whether the thinking behind the decision is sound.
“For this trade to be a good idea, though, Brandon Morrow has to fail as a starting pitcher. If he goes to Toronto and becomes a quality starting pitcher, you lose, no matter how well Brandon League pitches out of the bullpen. This time, the M’s are betting on a specific result to justify the trade.”
Now, your argument reasons that each trade is like a battle. You either win a battle or lose a battle and the Mariner’s lost this battle.
However, I don’t think Jack Zduriencik thinks exactly the same way. While he likes to win each individual battle, he is more concerned with winning the war.
Clearly, he just didn’t value Morrow. One thing that we know about Zduriencik is that he and his staff are thorough. None of us were in on the inside discussions, but I would believe that Zduriencik talked to just about every team regarding Morrow.
I would also guess that in trying to win the “war,” he wanted to acquire certain assets and one of the assets that he wanted to acquire was another bullpen piece. So, in order to acquire a wanted asset, he was willing to give up a perhaps more valuable, but unwanted asset.
I also believe that Zduriencik thinks like a chess master. He is always thinking several steps ahead. While he sacrificed a “castle”
in this deal, he is thinking larger picture overall.
Before the season starts, there will be other moves that Zduriencik will make in regards to roster construction that will make this trade in hindsight make sense.
For example, let’s say the M’s never made this trade. Now, sometime in January, the M’s acquire a first baseman and another starting pitcher. In discussions, Zduriencik and his staff still think they need another reliever.
If Zduriencik then trades Morrow for League at the beginning of February, is this still a bad trade knowing that the M’s lost this individual battle, but now they are closer to winning the war?
Again, Zduriencik is playing chess while the rest of us are playing checkers.
One doesn’t have to value Snell or Fister higher than Morrow to make this trade work. I don’t really see any of this trio consistently going deep into games. The availability of League for the 7th or 8th innings is what will make this trade work.
My opinion, which counts for squate would have planted Morrow in Tacoma the entire year. If Morrow flamed out, No loss it is Bavasi’s Boy. If he learns to pitch, AWESOME. But trade him for a one pitch relief man, just wow. The biggest issue I have with this all is how League/Aardsma pitchers are picked up every year for nada… Yet we traded for one? I will never be able to justify this trade. I am actually really pissed.
True. But as the time when actually need the money approaches it is not unusual to move the assets in your 401k into vehicles with less volatility. Seems like this was about minimizing risk.
This trade may be nothing more than A) hoping a change of scenery for two talented arms jump-starts their futures as relievers, possibly benefiting both teams more than their current career paths were, and B) clearing bruised egos/feelings of entitlement out of the way to insert a Bedard/Sheets/Randy into that #3 slot.
I really like what I’ve seen from Hyphen, but let’s be honest: he’s still pretty raw. While Felix/Clifford is a jaw-dropping combo rivaling any other, our #3-5′s are largely unproven commodities. I’m excited to think that Jack Z was likely just tweaking the roster in preparation for inserting the crucial next pieces into the puzzle.
The biggest issue I have with this all is how League/Aardsma pitchers are picked up every year for nada… Yet we traded for one? I will never be able to justify this trade. I am actually really pissed.
League is better than Aardsma.
I don’t like the trade much, but I don’t hate it. I give some minor weight to the explanation that Jack wants HIS guys, no Bavasi’s, Looper’s or anyone elses. I think it is unfortunate when that factors into the equation, but then it happens all the time in corporate life and politics, so why should MLB be any different?
The availability of League for the 7th or 8th innings is what will make this trade work.
Sorry, but no, this is simply overestimating the importance (and predictability) of a relief pitcher.
I think those guys are more effective relative to their group as starters rather than relievers. Jakubauskas, for instance, is a decent enough long-man just because he can throw a lot of innings, but relative to other relievers he’s replacement level. Throw him into a starting role, though, and he puts up slightly better than above-replacement level numbers. The same goes for the similar strike-throwing low-stuff guys that would fill either role.
This is kind of crazy. But mostly just wrong. A replacement level reliever does not become an above replacement level starter by moving into the rotation.
League will be pitching high leverage situations and bumping Kelley or Lowe down to mid-low leverage, bolstering our whole bullpen.
You misspelled “devaluing assets already on the roster.”
If Zduriencik then trades Morrow for League at the beginning of February, is this still a bad trade knowing that the M’s lost this individual battle, but now they are closer to winning the war?
Why one season qualifies as “a war” while one move is a short-sighted “battle” is beyond me. Why isn’t his entire tenure “the war”, where making a slight upgrade in one season at the expense of potentially downgrading his future rotation considered in your scenario?
Sorry, but you don’t get to just arbitrarily decide that 2010 is the big picture.
Dave I can follow along with your line of thinking and it makes sense, but do you think that another interpretation is that Jack Z is, as someone else said, “trying to strike while iron is hot”, i.e. trying to win the division this year?
He has limited resources (maybe, $5-7 million left to spend this year?) and has to still fill 1B and another SP (ideally, even before the Morrow trade). With the recent injury history of Kelley, White, and Lowe it’s makes sense you would want to shore up your BP. If he didn’t think Brandon Morrow was the solution, I can live with that.
I know it’s shortsighted, but I think I understand it.
I’d still love to hear a justification as to why Z rejected the Morrow + Kelley for Edwin Jackson trade. Especially now that he’s turned around and made this deal. Maybe that was all a rumor.
Z also said League is filling a need for this ball-club. An interesting argument given the four right-handed, late inning “fireballers” already on the team.
That’s why I tend (or more likely, want) to believe something else will happen – perhaps involving Aardsma, Kelley, Lowe, et al. I’m sticking with conclusion #2 from the previous post (though this argument makes sense as well).
Given that Zduriencik inherited Morrow and acquired Snell, doesn’t it stand to reason that Zduriencik values Snell over Morrow? Doesn’t it stand to reason that Zduriencik viewed Snell as a starter when he dealt for him, and — barring a horrendous spring — Snell will be occupying one of the 5 starting spots next season?
I keep hearing Precursor, this is a step trade to a better player. Well trading season is over for us, or it should be. The very next time GMZ reaches down into the minors to make a trade, he will hit bottom. I think we all agree, all of the chips that were tradeable have been traded. The last 6-9 real prospects we have should not be touched. And no I do not see Lopez as a high commodity.
Given that Zduriencik inherited Morrow and acquired Snell, doesn’t it stand to reason that Zduriencik values Snell over Morrow?
Umm, no? He inherited Felix and acquired Langerhans. Pretty sure he doesn’t value Langerhans more than Felix.
Doesn’t it stand to reason that Zduriencik viewed Snell as a starter when he dealt for him, and — barring a horrendous spring — Snell will be occupying one of the 5 starting spots next season?
Sure, that’s likely. But that’s not the point. What does Snell offer that Morrow does not? They’re the same pitcher type, just Morrow has better stuff. They have the same flaws. Whatever you don’t like about Morrow, you should also not like about Snell. So it seems ridiculous to say that the team can count on Snell as the #4 starter but Morrow was far too volatile to be an option for the #5.
By that rationale Zduriencik would value Snell over Felix.
Fister and Vargas are starters, not relievers. They’re slightly above-replacement as starters because of their vast pitch repertoire and ability to throw strikes. If you move them into a relief role they won’t suddenly lower their FIP enough to still be above-replacement as a reliever.
I should’ve said “inherited and then traded”
Fister and Vargas are starters, not relievers. They’re slightly above-replacement as starters because of their vast pitch repertoire and ability to throw strikes. If you move them into a relief role they won’t suddenly lower their FIP enough to still be above-replacement as a reliever.
I’m sorry, but the first statement just suggests that you don’t understand how relief pitchers come to be (hint: they’re almost all failed starters) and the second suggests that you don’t understand what happens to pitchers when they move to the bullpen (hint: their numbers get dramatically better).
Ok, but moving League (who instantly becomes our best reliever) into high-leverage situations increases his projected leveraged value into the 1.5 WAR range.
No, it does not. You’re significantly overestimating League’s projection. There are maybe a half dozen relievers in baseball who project as +1.5 WAR for 2010. League is not one of the six or seven best relievers in baseball. ZIPS and CHONE both have him between 0.5 and 0.75 WAR.
Alright, I get that, but I think that certain types of pitchers have a bigger difference between starting and relief. Let’s say the difference between a replacement level starter and reliever is x. Morrow is basically a one-pitch pitcher and walks a lot of people, and therefore is more suited to the bullpen, and hence his difference between starting and relieving is likely more than x or whatever as a reliever than a starter. Fister, Jakubauskas, Vargas… those types of players have a bigger repertoire and lower walk rates and are thus more suited to the starting role, their difference is likely less than x.
Dave, each year is a “big picture” or specific “war.” They give trophy’s after every season don’t they?
In isolation, if the Morrow trade in itself was winning the war, then your thesis would be correct. But, it is not. The Morrow trade is just a piece of a puzzle.
You wrote a related article a month or so back that each win now will become more expensive. Jack knows this. If my memory is correct (and it may not), you were talking about dollars. Jack is taking the same principle and using it with a different asset.
No, it does not. You’re significantly overestimating League’s projection. There are maybe a half dozen relievers in baseball who project as +1.5 WAR for 2010. League is not one of the six or seven best relievers in baseball. ZIPS and CHONE both have him between 0.5 and 0.75 WAR.
I project him for .85 WAR unleveraged, which puts him at about 1.4 WAR leveraged if he’s used in situations with an average LI of 1.6.
but I think that certain types of pitchers have a bigger difference between starting and relief.
In theory, yes, but the difference isn’t nearly as large as you’re suggesting. And I’m not convinced that either Vargas or Fister are the types that won’t get a boost from relieving. Look at Jakubauskas’ splits from last year – big difference as a starter and a reliever.
I think the pitchers who don’t get a significant boost from moving to the pen are rare. Lumping every strike-thrower into that group is just not reflecting reality.
Does it matter that Snell has thrown 150 innings each of the past 7 years, and Morrow has never surpassed 120? If they have the same flaws, then don’t you want to put a starter in the rotation who has thrown an entire season?
How much weight should Zduriencik give to the possibility that a Snell-Morrow 5th starter battle could lead to Morrow getting sent to AAA because the club wouldn’t to switch him back to the bullpen for a 3rd time? That leaves you with no value from Morrow, and you likely can’t trade him until May or probably June because April trades are exceptionally rare.
I project him for .85 WAR unleveraged, which puts him at about 1.4 WAR leveraged if he’s used in situations with an average LI of 1.6.
You can’t give him the full value of the leverage, because he doesn’t create it. Those situations would go to Lowe or Kelley or whoever. You’re not reflecting any opportunity cost into your projection.
Just wondering about another possible factor…
We all want to believe in Morrow panning out and becoming a solid or better major league starter (or at least we did pre-trade). We’ve seen him get handled poorly and also seen glimpses of what he could be if he put it all together.
However, it seems as though some of the poor management was at least partially Morrow’s fault. Wasn’t he the one to ask to be moved back to the bullpen – sure management has jerked him back and forth but he’s had a hand in that also (Disclaimer: I’m not saying that management should just do what they’re players suggest, just pointing out that this did in this case. Feel free to continue to blame management exclusively for how he was handled)
Perhaps the Mariners don’t have a good relationship with Morrow? Maybe they’ve had discussions about his role with the club and he’s fought them on it. He may not work well with the coaching staff and refuse to follow through on what they’re asking them to do. He might not practice hard or put the time in figuring he’ll just coast by on his talent alone.
If any of those things were true it’s doubtful we’d ever hear about it. The Mariner’s wouldn’t want word to get out, but also might have viewed Morrow as no longer being a fit for their system.
Maybe trading him was a mistake, I’m not discounting that. However, it’s hard to believe that there’s not more going on here – many of us have expressed that thought. Maybe this isn’t a case of Zduriencik making a mistake, but rather being caught in a situation where he couldn’t win?
Just throwing it out there.
I am wondering if we are missing a key arguement in this discussion. We are all assuming that League is a reliever and not a starter.
What if the plan is to make League a starter? He is a groundball machine who has high velocity and a splitter, one breaking pitch that is league average and he is an above average starter.
Dave, each year is a “big picture†or specific “war.†They give trophy’s after every season don’t they?
Because you say so? You created a specific analogy that pretends that 2010 is the entire picture, which is not the reality of baseball. 2011 matters. 2012 matters. They might matter less than 2010, but they still matter. Pretending that that they are separate and different is just dumb.
Does it matter that Snell has thrown 150 innings each of the past 7 years, and Morrow has never surpassed 120?
Not really, no. This stupid focus on quantity of innings pitched at the expense of the quality of innings is one of the most annoying aspects of certain beat writers. That the fan base has absorbed this lack of insight is frustrating.
I’m not saying that the difference is huge. I’m suggesting that they’re something like .5 WAR as a starter and 0 WAR as a reliever.
Jakubauskas last year was 4.56 tRA, 4.98 tRA* last year as a starter and 5.75, 4.72 as a reliever. .6 WAR as a starter and -.1 as a reliever. I think he’s the perfect example that actually FITS my theory.
Even if it’s true that every player gets the same boost, I’ve read (I think it was from you, in a post or comment, if not I’m sorry maybe RJ or something) that high BB% pitchers are more suited to relief roles where the walks won’t hurt them as much.
I’m not a fan of this move, but I don’t hate it and I can certainly see why the FO would make it, even if I don’t agree.
In my original post comparing the impact of League I didn’t assume any leverage. I think League adds very minimal expected value (wins) over Morrow this season, and his “value” mostly comes from having less performance variance.
Never mind previous comment, My thought was discussed earlier. I wish I understood how to eliminate it.
Fangraphs has about 20 or so relievers at over above 1.5 WAR in each of the past few years. They would seem to be a bad investment of resources.
But aren’t we talking about two players with the “same flaws” who project to perform similarly? If it’s the same quality, don’t you want more quantity? Don’t you want the guy who’s pitched an entire season as a starter, rather than the guy who hasn’t? Doesn’t the fact that Morrow’s never thrown more than 125 innings affect how you project him as a starter? If you’re expecting your starters to throw 180 innings, is that not a consideration? It’s not everything, but it’s a part of it. And, again, these are similar pitchers.
I’m not saying that the difference is huge. I’m suggesting that they’re something like .5 WAR as a starter and 0 WAR as a reliever.
That’s huge. And not at all supported by evidence.
Jakubauskas last year was 4.56 tRA, 4.98 tRA* last year as a starter and 5.75, 4.72 as a reliever. .6 WAR as a starter and -.1 as a reliever. I think he’s the perfect example that actually FITS my theory.
This is a horrible misuse of tRA. Look at his actual splits. 14 BB/16 K as a starter, 13 BB/31 K as a reliever. The entire difference in tRA is home run rate. Seriously, you’re building your case on a small sample house of cards.
Even if it’s true that every player gets the same boost, I’ve read (I think it was from you, in a post or comment, if not I’m sorry maybe RJ or something) that high BB% pitchers are more suited to relief roles where the walks won’t hurt them as much.
It’s not true that every player gets the same boost, and high BB pitchers do fare better in relief relative to low BB pitchers, but we’re talking small differences, not anything close to the +0.5 WAR you’re suggesting.
Well, tRA* is regressed and 4.98 to 4.72 isn’t a very big difference. Lower than “x” at least. “x” in tRA* is .51.
Ok, I’m wrong then. Thanks for clarifying. I like arguing with you because you always win and I always learn something. Welp, I guess I hate this trade even more now, thanks.
Do you have any explanation? How could a team that has made so many good moves make such a bad one here? Is it possible Morrow asked to leave?
Well, tRA* is regressed and 4.98 to 4.72 isn’t a very big difference. Lower than “x†at least. “x†in tRA* is .51.
The sample is way too small to use tRA*. Over this amount of innings, everyone will look the same, because the regression overwhelms everything else.
Do you have any explanation? How could a team that has made so many good moves make such a bad one here? Is it possible Morrow asked to leave?
This is kind of the point of the post – they’re betting against him succeeding as a starter.
Finally a “questionable trade” you can criticize!
It was starting to be too much of a Jack Z love fest around here. LOL.
One of the interesting things that Tony B. said at the USSM event in January is that they WANT disagreement in the FO on player moves.
To quote General Patton: “If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”
Is it possible that the effort and resources to develop/concentrate any significant aspect of the organization to Morrow’s development are considered wasted (or at least “un-maximized”) resources by Jack Z? Yes. Does Brandon League necessitate less of these resources to fulfill (or exceed) the role that Brandon Morrow would more than likely assume in our bullpen? Yes.
Question marks surely exist for each player, as Matthew & Dave have recently pointed out. But I think the conceived timetable for Morrow’s development combined with the awesome reality that Jack Z and company will likely begin to evaluate college talent under a scope that could be the calling for a paradigm shift in amateur scouting, at least offers the possibility that our Front Office feels confident enough that they can fill Brandon Morrow’s shoes this June.
That was a long sentence. Basically what I’m saying:
-Unknown future for both players, but both of Morrow’s extreme upside & downside are unlikely.
- Has it already been concluded that Cliff Lee won’t resign, leaving us with an enhanced draft? …which feeds into the fact that:
- Jack Z + The Braintrust are brilliant. They are assuredly (I hope) working on innovative ways to track high school/college players beyond sending scouts to watch isolated starts/at-bats/fielding/etc.
Our Front Office should be confident enough that they can draft Morrow 2.0- at worst- which means less resources for developing a starter now.
I should have backed up and said where in my original post did I ever say that 2011, 2012, etc., didn’t matter. Oh yeah, I didn’t.
So, calling my post dumb when you are accusing me of a narrative that I didn’t have is wrong.
So, since you answered to a point I didn’t make, I will repeat my original point. In isolation, this trade doesn’t make sense. Since this trade will not be in isolation, we have to wait to see what else happens between now and when the season starts to really evaluate this trade.
*Next June, when we would get compensation for Lee.
Dave Cameron, March 23, 2007
I’d say that his fate as an SP bust was sealed just as you pretty much foretold it nearly 3 years ago now, Dave.
And reading this post, too, from after that season it’s clear that Morrow didn’t really make any progress in 2007 – progress as a SP, I mean:
It’s been 3 years — even after a bit of a diversion to the minor leagues, Brandon hasn’t shown he can handle even ONE of these, really.
In the context of the bet/risk – I’d say Zdurencik’s odds are decent. All bets are off, though, if Toronto is strict about not calling him up for pretty much all of 2010 while he shows in their system that he can suddenly find three of the items on that list.
Personally, I know it’s folly to predict injury in most cases, but I think there’s a non-zero chance that he sustains an injury that derails him before he has the chance to master even 2 of those items on that list…
Let’s hope the real reason they traded him was that they still are planing on getting 2 starters this off season. They were hinting at going into the winter meetings. If the 2nd is maybe a Ben Sheets caliber one then it was really Morrow or Snell for the 5th spot. If so Jack probably saw them as a toss up. So he traded off the one that was easier to trade thinking that who ever lost would have to go to the pen where he thought that League would be a better fit then the looser.
What if we were on the verge of getting a legit number 3 starter? Would this deal make more sense?
So someone please help me understand this.
Let’s assume the best for both players this year…Morrow becomes an acceptable fourth starter (obviously still learning) and League becomes a good eighth inning shutdown guy.
In such a circumstance, how much more valuable to a team is the #4 starter…and what’s the metric for determining how difficult it is to replace each of those roles?
Thanks.
I have to disagree. If League is a successful Holding pitcher ala Nelson, and if Morrow is a succesful #4 starter, then the trade was a success with this offense. Holds are gold when you have good defensive unit. Do like they did in 2001 and make it a 7 inning game.
League is much better on grass:
League’s splits
From 2007-2009
Grass: 2.55 ERA, 1.11 WHIP
Turf: 5.29 ERA, 1.55 WHIP
Toronto is turf.
Is the missing link to the ‘reasoning’ behind this trade Mr. Chavez? Is he just a C- low-tier throw-in that some have claimed? Or is he a legit talent (that the new Jays GM has overlooked) who has a solid chance to be major-league average or better?
Does this make the Clement trade look worse because Zduriencik seems to be contradicting his logic for wanting Snell with this trade?
Also, who epitomizes a .5 WAR starter -i.e. which bad pitcher should Morrow’s career compare to in order for us to be happy with this trade from a results perspective?
Chavez doesn’t look to be anything special.
I get the feeling that this has more to do with trying to make a push for 2010 without giving up the farm. Perhaps they think Morrow might be OK in time but they feel that he won’t crack the rotation this year. They may see him needing more minor league time (which in hindsight is what should have happened in 2007) and they feel that League gets them a seasoned arm for the bullpen, one that they think will work great with the grass in Safeco.
Also, while this deal may not hinge on other deals, they may be looking at other options (Sheets, etc..) that would preclude using Morrow in the rotation. If so, they probably wanted to pull the trigger now while they could get the bullpen arm they were looking for.
I think we’ll better be able to evaluate this deal come spring training once we can see how the roster shakes out. Jack’s still got two months (and more if he picks someone up during ST) to solidify the roster. He’s done an awesome job since he got on board so I’m guessing that we’ll all be pretty happy with the end result.
In simple terms I believe, it turns out Morrow has as much trade value as Lopez. JZ probably concluded last season, Morrow is a reliever, due to his flaws, medical condition, etc. Morrow was not going to make the rotation except in Tacoma, but JZ knows he’s reliever, middle reliever at that. Ok, starter, reliever, starter, reliever, at least he’s going to let the kid prove where he belongs (bullpen) with another team while he can try to be a starter. I bet JZ tried to get a corner infielder with Morrow, but couldn’t pull off that magic trick. We got a young gun who on the upside, may be our closer someday, but right now gives us a darn good bullpen. I don’t think JZ would make a mistake in this situation, time will tell if he is genius or not.
I agree 100% with the opening article, but I think it needs to go a step further.
Zdurenciek’s decision isn’t all about Morrow. It’s been no secret that Z has been looking for TWO starters this offseason. I think when this offseason began, he and Wak realized that between Morrow, Rowland-Smith, and Snell they had 3 guys who they didn’t feel comfortable with outside of the 4th and 5th slots in the rotation. I think Morrow, at this point, is clearly the lesser value of those three considering Rowland-Smith’s effectiveness and the fact that Snell was hand-picked and is going to make some real money.
So, if Morrow’s not going to be one of the starting five, what are his options? A) bullpen, B) minors, C) traded. Putting Morrow through A (again)or B (again) would just be mean. Jack’s good human being, so it seems he settled on option C.
Morrow’s been shopped all offseason. This deal with Toronto has been on the table for a month. I think it represents the best deal Jack could get. And I think he made it now because as soon as he lands that second SP this offseason, his leverage to trade Morrow could drop significantly.
In summary, I think Morrow’s gone because Zdurenciek is going to replace him with someone better. In fact, I’ll be stunned if we don’t end up with a guy who’s clearly a #3 above Rowland-Smith and Snell. Somebody like Sheets or Duchscherer. And I don’t think it will be long before we find out what Jack’s got cooking.
I initially found the deal disappointing, but now I find it intriguing.
Out of all the rumored/actual deals that I’ve seen involving Morrow this is the one deal specifically FOR Morrow. I continue to wonder why the other deals didn’t pan out. Did they want Morrow and too much other stuff? If that’s true then that says quite a bit about Morrow’s value.
In that case, how does one go about improving Morrow’s value on a team that’s shifting away from developing mode and towards winning mode? Chances are, with Felix and Cliff Lee at the front of the rotation the organization wants the best guys they can find in the back of the rotation. That can’t be good for Morrow who’s already woefully behind in his development, particularly if he doesn’t win a spot in the rotation (let alone keeping it).
And what of Z’s month long conversations with GM Alex Anthopoulos? If Morrow’s current value is low in a situation that it wouldn’t get much higher I could forsee the debate being all about Morrow’s worth now and going forward. And with nothing being guaranteed since he needs to catch up on development they figured that they pick up a player in a similar situation that is more likely to stick on the major league roster.
(Sorry about this. This post is kind of a rush job, I need to head to work.)
Thunda, you stole my post.
I think I agree. This trade tells me that the Mariners have neither time nor patience to spend on developing Morrow as a starter. Not this year. I choose to read that as Z planning to bring someone in for the three hole and further evidence that he wants to win this year (as if we needed more evidence).
Why not leave him in the pen then? He probably feels like League is a more sure bet in the pen. And maybe he wants to give Morrow a chance to start that he never really got here.
I wasn’t excited at all about this trade, but now that I’ve thought about it, I’m OK.
I also don’t doubt that this was part of the Lee trade. That still seems plausible, despite Z’s denial.
C’mon, Jack. Bring us home a 1B and another starting pitcher!
as per Baker:
I blame the win now mode the Mariners were in, at which point they purposely tossed away Morrow’s future value as a starter in order to get an immediate value as a reliever. It was a stupid decision then, and the Mariners just finished paying for that dumb decision this week with the trade.
My view is a bit more positive. I think the M’s were more concerned with TIME of development (when it would happen) than the IF of development (if it would happen) with Morrow.
Once Lee fell into our laps, and once the Bradley deal got done…both high-upside moves along with Figgins, I think Jack Z saw a bigger chance to “win now” than he imagined he might have just a few weeks ago. So, as part of that analysis, his thinking evolved a bit to something like, “hmmmm, if we have a shot now, where are our biggest question marks, and what should I do about it.” Morrow’s development time was a question mark, and the bullpen has some question marks….and frankly, I think Zduriencik must have a pretty good idea about one more free agent SP they are going to have in the fold (say, Justin Duchscherer, or?).
So Z made a trade to immediately strengthen the club in the bullpen, while marginally weakening the club at SP, where they are about to make one more move. That’s my bet.
Well, at first you were pretty darn sure this was a follow up trade to acquiring Lee…
I really hope someone asks about this at the next USSMariner event. It would be really interesting to hear the organization’s philosophy behind this trade. And I’m guessing you’d get a better answer than the standard cliches they give to the media.
The Mariners had a need for a solid bullpen arm. Jack Z has stated when he makes trades both teams should “win” We acquired an arm he felt we needed for the pen (obviously feeling Morrow could not bring what he felt we needed out of the pen) and a power hitting OF with some potential.
Not that it’s a knock against Morrow, but his diabetes can also make him a “risk”
Maybe they have enough information about him to believe that this is a good idea
This intrigues me, and I’m not savvy enough to know what sort of information they might have. Obviously not injury information — what else could they know that they wouldn’t have to report in a potential deal? Morrow wanting a trade? Morrow hinting that he never wants to be a starter after all? What sort of inside information is there that would change their perception of him like this?
Well, at first you were pretty darn sure this was a follow up trade to acquiring Lee…
You know how someone who is “pretty darn sure” of something presents it? He lists multiple options, presents his theory as one of the possible ones, and tells people to pick whichever one they want.
Oh, wait, no he doesn’t.
Actually, this deal doesn’t require Morrow to fail to make sense. It requires one of two things to make sense: either a) Morrow fails or b) Stormin’ Johermyn Chavez succeeds. The odds of the latter might not be enough to fully balance the calculus — indeed, they’re clearly not all that high — but they do at least shift it somewhat, and they certainly make it less of a black/white binary set than you present in your post.
Bob Elliot’s article on the Halladay drama seems to back up Z’s claim that the two deals were seperate. At least, he doesn’t seem to be aware the Seattle and Toronto ever talked directly regaring the Halladay deal.
How much weight is to be placed on not just Morrow’s chances to become a successful SP…but the window the M’s have for him to reach it (before Free Agency)?
I completely agree with your comment that the Mariners no longer have faith in Morrow’s ability to become a starter but I would add in the next two years. Also, it is not just that Morrow has been bounced back and forth from starter to (potential) closer by management. He has wanted these changes too. He has always wanted the shortest path to pitching in the majors and minimizing his time in the minors. When it looked like starting was the way to go, he wanted to be a starter and vice versa for relief pitcher.
Is it possible the Mariners will be burned by this trade? Of course (I remember the Dodgers unloading the short, skinny, Martinez brother (Pedro) for a veteran second baseman). Even though the Mariners are terrific at finding relief pitchers that is not the case for most clubs. How much are the Angels paying for their new setup man? How much return did the Mariners get from the Putz trade? I would much rather have Morrow develop as a starter but this is an acceptable alternative.
Dave, could you explain this a little better for a relative newcomer to these stats please?
The history of baseball is littered with guys who throw hard, but can’t command their pitches and lack reliable secondary pitches. I mean, there have been a LOT, LOT, LOT of guys fitting this description. If J-Z and crew felt that Morrow was one of these guys, then they did a good job moving him when he still had some value. Consider the following career numbers:
A – 95.0 mph, 8.6 K/9, 4.6 BB/9, 1.9 GB/FB, 4.21 xFIP
B – 95.0 mph, 9.3 K/9, 5.8 BB/9, .9 GB/FB, 4.73 xFIP
C – 94.7 mph, 6.9 K/9, 4.7 BB/9, .8 GB/FB, 4.93 xFIP
D – 93.6 mph, 8.9 K/9, 6.2 BB/9, .8 GB/FB, 5.09 xFIP
E – 95.1 mph, 7.7 K/9, 4.8 BB/9, 2.5 GB/FB (!), 4.1 xFIP
F – 94.2 mph, 8.1 K/9, 4.9 BB/9, 1.5 GB/FB, 4.40 xFIP
G – 96.6 mph, 7.6 K/9, 3.7 BB/9, 1.4 GB/FB, 4.22 xFIP
H – 95.2 mph, 8.6 K/9, 4.5 BB/9, 1.1 GB/FB, 4.31 xFIP
A (Fernando Rodney), B (Morrow), C (Jesus Colome), D (Brian Bruney), E (Mike MacDougal), F (Tyler Yates), G (Jorge Julio).
Yes, I am cherry-picking to some extent. But there are also a lot of guys fitting Morrow’s present description that never even make it to the majors. I think maybe we’re all just dreaming a little too high on what Morrow could be, and not looking enough at the reality of what he is and what he is likely to be.
Also, another possiblity is that J-Z and crew are higher on Chavez that we realize, and the M’s were willing to trade Morrow’s potential to develop into a good starting pitcher for 2012-13 for Chavez’s potential to develop into a masher starting in 2013-14.
Let’s assume the best for both players this year…Morrow becomes an acceptable fourth starter (obviously still learning) and League becomes a good eighth inning shutdown guy.
In such a circumstance, how much more valuable to a team is the #4 starter…and what’s the metric for determining how difficult it is to replace each of those roles?
Let me see: Morrow gets 30 starts as a #4. Gets 15 wins at a 50% success rate.
League gets 65-70 appearances and about 50 h0ld opportunities. If he has a 50% success rate that would give the M’s a chance at 25 wins.
As a few people have pointed out, Dave, you’ve ignored Chavez. To use the stock market metaphor, Chavez is a penny-stock biotech company with a 25% chance of FDA approval 2 years from now. I wouldn’t put all my retirement funds there, but it’s not nothing. To me, that balances out the trade. I think it’s a fair deal.
&*^%^&* I got the italics bakcwards.
I am not sure I agree with your analysis.
In a trade (just like foreign exchange and interest parity), we should expect the two commodities to bear equal rates of return. Obviously, in baseball, trades do not always bear equal rates of return because some front offices do not value players properly or there are other concerns. In interest parity, there can be an insurance premium. You aren’t sure how this exchange will work out, so you pay slightly more than face value to hedge your bets.
This trade is equal if you assume the Mariners had to pay an insurance premium. It does not matter whether Morrow breaks out as a SP or not – that is results based analysis. What matters is how well the Mariners hedged their bets. What is the likely outcome that Morrow becomes a starter/reliever? What is the proper premium to pay.
No doubt Morrow is much more valuable than this package if he is a starter, just as he is much less valuable than this package if he is a reliever. They decided not too take the risk. It’s kinda like forward rate. The win/loss of this trade is determined if they gave up to much for the premium.
“Brandon League, at this moment in time, fits our need.” Zduriencik
I don’t think League will be with the team at spring training. We needed to get him, in order to trade him.
Another stock analogy. What do you do with a stock that you bought 3 years ago thinking it was going to go through the roof, but that has instead steadily declined for 3 years (Morrow)? You either hold, on the 25% chance it recovers, or you get out before it’s too late. The M’s got out, invested most of the proceeds in an index fund (League), and used the balance of the proceeds to take a long position in a biotech penny-stock (Chavez). That’s completely defensible.
I like it that we have a front office that targets a pitcher like League as opposed to a move like the Angels, paying $11 for two years of Rodney. Remembering that the Angels spent big on Fuentes last season while Jack found Aardsma and you see a trend, and we’re winning.
That said, I was looking forward to seeing Morrow in our rotation to see if he could put it together, because if he does this deal will truly bite. Which is Dave’s point. But I like the point Brick makes in the middle of this thread, which is that the energy/resources spent on the Brandon Morrow experiment are now off the Mariners’ books and the air is clearer.
My bad, should read: G (Matt Lindstrom), H (Jorge Julio).
There is an old Navajo saying that says “There are many paths to the same door.” If that door is a winning team and ultimately the playoffs, then there is more then 1 way to get there. Lets wait and see what happens.
OK, so we can’t assume Morrow will be a reliever going forward when estimating his future value.
Don’t we have to do the same for League, though? I know the idea hasn’t been publicly echoed by the M’s FO, but what if they see value in him as a potential starter in the future as well?
He’s only one year older than Morrow, gets way more ground balls than Morrow, and as recently as last year has been taking steps forward with his secondary offerings by adding an interesting splitter.
Maybe (yeah, probably) it’s a long shot, but IMO, declare Brandon League a starter and you’ve turned an iffy trade into a win with the utterance of one statement.
It seems fairly cut and dry that Dave values Morrow more than Z (and the rest of baseball). Z knows more than anyone about this whole situation. On the whole evaluating talent thing, Dave wasn’t a big fan of the Putz/Gut trade last year either. I’m pretty sure he wanted Matt Joyce instead of Gut. I’ll stick with Z on this.
Coasty, you know you could just go look this stuff up, right?
I mean… what do you want there?
I guess we will have to take his word for it, but there is one caveat: If it was part of the Halladay-Lee trade, then Jack can’t admit it because that would violate the trade rules.
I still think it must be part of the Halladay-Lee trade, because there is one thing about the Halladay-Lee trade that makes no sense without this. Because the Phillies didn’t move any of the pieces they got from the Mariners to Toronto, then Amaro could have shopped Lee openly to get the highest value available rather than negotiating exclusively with the M’s. The only reason they negotiated exclusively with the M’s is because they couldn’t do a three way with any of the other teams that were trying to get Halladay. And because that was basically all the teams that could contend next year and had enough enough money to take on a largish contract, that left only the M’s to do the three team deal. If a third team wasn’t need to sweeten the deal for Toronto, the Phillies could have gotten a much better deal shopping Lee to the Yankees, Red Sox, and Angels, as well as the Mariners.
So that and the fact Jack can’t admit it was part of the original deal is why I still think it was a quid pro quo followup.
Dave wasn’t a big fan of the Putz/Gut trade last year either.
Seriously?
Go look through the archives. In the midst of most people decrying that trade, I was the one who said it had the chance to be the best trade in the history of the team.
If you’re just going to make stuff up, go away.
Derek, you beat me to Dave’s defense. He says here that “It’s a remarkably interesting deal on a lot of levels. I love Gutierrez’s glove, but would have preferred Joyce as a better fit for Safeco.” So it’s not
so muchat all that Dave “wasn’t a big fan” of the deal. He was, absolutely. Coasty, Dave might be criticized for not fully forecasting Gutierrez’s breakout year (especially with the bat), but can you – or anybody say that you did?[Although, as an aside, I continue to be astounded that Dave was essentially able to call, almost to the day, the power surge that made Gutierrez's offensive break-out what it was. Dave foresaw, better than anybody I know, what Franklin Gutierrez could be and how good that Putz deal was....]
Dave wasn’t a big fan of the Wilson/Snell trade, but as I recall it was only because he thought we gave away too much.
But comparing this to Soriano for Ramirez is ludicrous. Soriano was a demonstrably better pitcher than Ramirez, either as a starter or reliever. And many teams desired Soriano as a potential closer. He had very little downside, and Bavasi traded him for a player that actually made the team worse.
In this case, Brandon League’s current value is better than Brandon Morrow’s. And there’s enough doubt regarding Brandon Morrow’s ability to stick as a starting pitcher that the Mariners felt it wasn’t worth the risk. Far from a gamble on a specific outcome, this move is a bet on what they feel is the most likely outcome – that Morrow will never be an effective major league starter, and that even if he reaches that potential, it may take him years to do so. That’s time the M’s don’t have.
Sorry. I should have just said “Dave’s talent evaluation would have led us to pursusimg matt joyce over Gut” I was wrong to say you weren’t a fan of the trade.
While eating innings is probably overvalued by the media etc, how dangerous would it be to bump Morrow up from 120 innings last season to 180 innings this season?
I think this trade will work out just fine in the long run. I see League having a break out year leaving astroturf AND the AL east behind. Morrow on the other hand is going from the frying pan into the fire.
How do you think he’ll fare facing the yanks and sox every other start… and who’s value will be higher come next offseason league or Morrow?
I like Brandon Morrow and sorta wished we could have seen one full year of him starting.
I wish him luck in his new home and welcome Brandon League who will help our bullpen. I hope both succeed.
If i was a team in a rebuilding mode, like Toronto is, I’d DEFINITELY prefer Morrow to League.
From the M’s perspective though, if Morrow fails as a starter in the 2010 season, then what? Put him back in the pen? Would Morrow want to do it? Stick him in there as a starter and hope he eventually develop, while sabotaging this window of opportunity (remember M’s only have Lee for one season)?
Another thing I was wondering about is, is this really the best deal M’s could have gotten out of Morrow? Without doing much research, my initial reaction would be that no teams in contention would give up hot prospects for Morrow and hope he works out as a starter; and no team in rebuilding would give up hot prospects. period.
Now that I’ve given it more thought, i actually agree with Keith Law’s opinion much much more than i initially did.
After looking through the numbers, I’m going to harp on my “League to the rotation” thought even more –
League’s tOPS+ for the platoon splits over the last four years:
(R/L)
’06: 73/148
’07: 60/144
’08: 62/142
’09: 90/101
What’s the typical variance of this statistic? Because that 40 point reduction against lefties looks huge.
I could see relegating him to the bullpen in earlier years with such a huge split, but if he’s really taken such a step forward, what exactly makes him less desirable than Morrow for the rotation?
Maybe if Morrow was going somewhere else, I could really see him succeed. But he’s going to the AL East. I just honestly don’t see him faring as well when he is having to pitch at Fenway and NYS more consistently.
Dave, I absolutely agree with you about the departure in philosophy that this trade represents from previous practice by this front office. There seems little question that this deal is a bet against Morrow’s success (at least in this year, as a starter), which as you say is a far cry from acquiring undervalued assets that permit you enough flexibility to react to what actually develops. That, to me, is the worst thing about the deal – we’re giving up on Morrow’s potential as a starter without ever really giving him a chance to develop and show us, one way or the other. That has to be interpreted as a bet against his success.
With all that said, I’m really curious why you find your #2 scenario from yesterday’s post so unlikely? Not that I think that Zduriencik acquired these specific players just to trade, but I would not be surprised at all if the acquisition of League made Jack feel more comfortable about dealing a piece like Lowe/White/Kelley (or, perhaps, League) if he knew he good fill a remaining or greater need. I expect some further move. The most likely is to sign a high-risk/high-upside pitcher like Sheets – to me, that is part of what makes sense of dealing Morrow, as others have noted. But I certainly wouldn’t call another trade far-fetched.
I also think Jack’s comments about Morrow were pretty clear, and though couched so as not to criticize, made clear that he didn’t see Morrow as a starter, really. I wonder what they’ve seen, outside of numbers we’ve all seen, that makes Jack act with such seeming certainty? It can’t really be desperation over the bullpen situation, can it? After all, Jack spent last year showing how easily a good bullpen can be constructed on the cheap….
Isn’t this results based analysis? It doesn’t seem to me that you measure this based on Morrow’s future results.
If the M’s don’t think Morrow is going to succeed as a starter, fine, that’s their opinion. I would measure the trade based on whether the M’s got a fair return for him based on how the rest of baseball values him. I would have thought he’d have more value than this to other GM’s. But that’s just a guess based on no good information.
Without ever giving him a chance to develop? I’d say that ship sailed a couple of years ago. It’s not GMZ’s fault, but the moment they started jerking him around between the rotation and bullpen, his development was stalled significantly.
But at the beginning of 2009, the organizational plan for Brandon Morrow was pretty clear: they wanted him to be a starting pitcher, and were sending him back to AAA to develop. That didn’t happen at the beginning of the year, in large part because the M’s deferred to Morrow’s request to remain in the bullpen.
Bavasi’s crew screwed up his development, but Morrow had a lot to do with getting in the way of Z’s plans. And that may have had a lot to do with why this organization has soured so much on Morrow.
…which would be unfortunate, since trades are supposed to be evaluated based on the information and circumstances of the players involved at the time of the trade. I.e. that you can’t declare a trade “won” or “lost” years later.
The Bedard trade, for example, was bad because Bavasi was overpaying for Bedard at the time, not because Jones and Sherill blossomed almost immediately and everyone else that went to the Orioles are on a path to do much the same.
So I hope the Mariners had already made up their minds about Morrow’s role, and were not doing the speculation you’re describing.
If they decided Morrow’s current value to the Mariners was as a reliever, then Morrow as we know him right now is essentially an inconsistent version of League. So getting Morrow for League plus a prospect puts the Ms slightly ahead.
If they decided Morrow’s current value to the Mariners was as a starter, then Morrow was another question mark in a rotation that had at least 2 reliable pitchers (Felix and Cliff), 1 reliable pitcher barring injury (Ryan), and 1 question mark (Ian). Moving Morrow leaves room to bring in a more reliable starting pitcher. Now the biggest worries for the rotation are “will Ian have the right composure and execution of his pitches to succeed consistently” and “will Ryan stay healthy”. Having the third question of whether Morrow will succeed this year as a starter would have either introduced more risk of overusing the bullpen, required having to start Vargas / Fister / whoever more than the Mariners should, or both.
Based on what we know right now, and history leading up to this point, Morrow is a reliever, and was swapped for an equal or better reliever. I hope the Mariners also saw it that way, rather than the speculation you describe.
1. It’s a good thing Z makes some trades that are questionable, so that other GMs will continue to feel comfortable trading with him, lol.
2. His trading philosophy was very safe until now, as you say. This one depends on his and his staff’s analysis of the actual players being right. Scary, but it had to happen sometime.
I’m fascinated by the analysis, and expected more for Morrow, but time will tell.
Yes, without ever giving him a chance to develop. If your point is that 2009 was Morrow’s fault, I would respond that management doesn’t have to kow-tow to players’ wishes and ultimately bears responsibility for what happens with a players’ development. Brandon Morrow got 15 starts in three years with the Mariners, and only 20 starts in the minors over the same time. Do you call that adequate development of a MLB starter? Wouldn’t you have liked to have seen Morrow get a season or two’s worth of minor league starts, followed by a full season in the Majors before giving up on him as a starter?
Can’t let this pass. Only a handful of number ones win half their starts such as Felix and CC (but not Greinke). In 30 starts, an average #4 wins 8 to 10 games.
That’s exactly my point. I was being optomistic with the 15 wins. I was just trying to point out that League has an opportunity to be involved in more wins during the season then Morrow would have.
TumwaterMike, no matter how you slice it, the contribution of a winning starting pitcher (or even a starting pitcher in a no decision that the club ultimately wins exceeds that of a reliever “involved in” a win (whether hold or save).
Wins and holds are not a good method to measure a pitcher’s performance.
[see guidelines]
It’s true, but if the player says – I don’t think I’m up to being a starting pitcher, then the responsible organization has to take that into consideration. It’s one thing to say that a AAA vs. minor league decision is 100% in the hands of the organization, but a decision on whether or not a player feels capable of handling the workload of a starting pitcher? I think the player’s attitude has to come into play, if for no other reason than ignoring it would do more significant harm to the player’s development and possibly his health.
When it turned out that Morrow didn’t really know what he wanted, they had to change course. But he’s going into a situation in Toronto where they’re probably going to take a “sink or swim” approach. And unless he dramatically improves in terms of his command, consistency, and durability, he’s going to have a rough year. The M’s weren’t willing to take that risk.
This trade wasn’t a gamble, it was hedging their bets and betting short-term gain versus long-term potential. This type of trade is made all the time in the major leagues and the negativity is really surprising. Seriously, if this is the worst move that we can expect from Jack Z, I think we’re going to be pretty happy.
I understand you can’t equate holds with wins. My point is that League potentially will be involved in more wins during the season then Morrow. I don’t know know if this is a good trade or not. We have to play out the season and evalutare it at the end of 2010. Everything else is just speculation. The trade has happened. Lets move on and talk about the other possible moves the M’s might make before Spring Training. That is what I find interesting.
I’d forgotten about Morrow’s self-imposed back-and-forth to the bullpen early last year. That flop/flip-flop probably didn’t build any confidence within the Z system — they seem pretty focused on a ‘my way or the highway’ management scheme.
It’s not that you can’t equate holds with wins, it’s that both stats have zero impact on how you should value a baseball player.
You evaluate a player on how he fits into the team. If it works its good (Gutierrez, Branyan and Aardsma, 2009). If it doesn’t its bad (Sexson and Vidro 2008).
I believe this decision was not so much about statistical analysis and projections, but rather about his mental makeup and competitiveness. The new front office has embraced the mathematical side of evaluation, but they also employ the more traditional aspects of evaluating talent. Some may disregard the latter as mere intuition and much too subjective to base the future of your club on. But (perhaps to the chagrin of many on this site) these concepts still play a role. Therefore maybe this trade can’t be understood correctly from cyberspace. They know/see things that we cannot. Therefore we may all be out of our league on this on.
Three things to think about.
First, Morrow is 25 and his development was in serious reverse last year, especially his control. He’s burned a lot of service time without making significant steps towards being a reliable starter. He may still do so, but The M’s only “lose” the trade if Morrow develops into a a starter before he’s out of arb years. At the rate he’s going, unless he has a major breakthrough quickly, the odds are very slim anyone get’s more than a year’s worth of undermarket +2.5 WAR starts out of him. So I think the likely upside we’re giving up is at best 2 years of an above average pitcher making arb money, say total of 6 WAR at $12Million. Using $4.5M/win as the going rate, that’s a $15 Million potential upside. Nothing to sneeze at, but I think the odds are pretty slim he nets someone that windfall before he hits FA.
Second, if this wasn’t part of the Lee deal, then we can assume Zduriencik didn’t just go with the first deal that came along, but instead shopped Morrow around and this was the best offer he actually got. Sure, there were other rumors, but rumors is rumors. I may well be nobody else in the league puts much value on Morrow either.
Thrid, as mjwalt pointed out, Morrow jerked himself around a fair bit last year. But the interview snippets that Baker ran yesterday made it seem like Morrow was blaming the team for his own short-sighted decision to ask to go back to the pen at the start of 08. Maybe he’s not the most coachable guy in the world, making the M’s think there’s less chance of him making the step forward.
The first point is analysis, the last two rampant and unfair speculation, but hey, what else is there to do? Oh, wrap presents and fix some eggnog! Right, well, off I go then. Not the best trade in the world, but I’m okay with it.
PS: Ralph and Chris_from_Bothel, Dave is not doing results-based analysis. He’s talking about expected results, with is perfectly correct and not at all the same thing.
I like Dave’s analysis but there is one point that doesn’t quite follow through completely for me: if Morrow were to succeed as a starter in Toronto, that doesn’t necessarily equate to Morrow would have succeeded in Seattle.
I would think that Adair had a lot of input, and I can envision scenarios where Adair tells Jack Z that he isn’t sure what to do with Morrow, or what he has done hasn’t seemed to work.
In this respect it would be more that the Ms didn’t think that Morrow would succeed in their program rather than Morrow wouldn’t succeed at all.
This piece reminds me of a quote about Brandon Morrow’s chances of becoming a useful MLB starter from 2007:
I’m trying to remember who the quote was from. I can’t quite put my finger on- oh yes!
Actually that 4/60 odds are quite good, as I pointed out at the time. Nolan Ryan HOF, Lefty Grove HOF, JR Richard – dominating pitcher career cut short by blood clot, Johnny Vandemeer – Back to Back no hitters and a solid career.
You’d trip over yourself drafting a kid that had a 1/15 chance to be an all time great.
By the way Sandy Koufax barely missed Dave’s screen, at 25 690IP 5.27 BB/9.
Randy Johnson started his career to late to have the innings at 25.
Watching all the seemingly weird role changes and other moves around Morrow this year, I interpreted it as a good organization trying to handle a head case without publicly undermining his trade value. I’m not the only one who would have concluded that based on the limited information a tight organization was providing.
Suppose that Zduriencik is respected around the league, but shopped Morrow aggressively during the winter meetings without a prior “this guy’s a problem” story appearing in the media. Were the other GMs supposed to conclude that Zduriencik woke up stupid or generous that morning? Didn’t it make sense for them to be wary of that offer? From an “explains all observed phenomena” perspective, this hypothesis makes a lot of sense given what’s publicly available.
I’m somewhat dubious about the trade on a non-statistical level.
Assuming that Morrow actually had some say in his bounding about between starter and reliever, Morrow has made or participated in some bad developmental decisions.
However, I have heard him in interviews on several occasions and Morrow is articulate and gives at least the surface impression of being smart. If he actually is smart, I’d lean toward a more than 25% chance that he eventually turns into a good starter.
Unfortunately the intelligence/success ratio is impossible to monitor as a statistic and appearances are deceptive. A lot of dumb athletes go to college, and a lot of smart athletes don’t. And many smart athletes are relatively inarticulate (e.g., Magic Johnson).
If I knew that Zduriencik took Morrow’s intelligence into account before the trade, I’d feel considerably more comfortable about it, but of course that is not the sort of thing he would ever comment upon.
Application of intelligence to your sport is an iffy proposition, even if you have some indicia of mental acuity to start with. Great SAT’s and a scholarship to an Ivy doesn’t keep me, 40+ years later, from grabbing my driver for every hole that’s not a par 3. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg of stupid.
Dave, Derek and mods. Off topic I know. I just made a donation (albeit small). Wanted to wish the owners/mods and posters of this truly awesome site some very happy holiday mojo!!! So have a Chick-fil-ay and a Coffee on me. Peace, everybody.
Dingbatman
I think a couple of things about this deal.
1) ‘We’ have a tendancy to overvalue Brandons worth in return based on hopes, dreams, and draft slot. Not real performance based assessment. I was very guilty of this for a matter of time myself.
2) I believe that while talented Brandon has shown MORE signs of success IF IT IS TO HAPPEN AT ALL as a B Pen guy.
3) I think its wise to sell high on a ‘prospect’ that is otherwise unproven, and no Brandon is NOT proven. By that I mean is it legit to label him that anymore say past this year? I say no, so get what you can if you think failure is immenent!?
4) IMHO Brandon is not going to be able to make it as a starter in the league because of one thing. And that thing is between his ears, that one thing thats hardest to fix.
5) All that being the case I think it wise to get someone (by all accounts) that is a GOOD BP arm, and let BW fail as a starter FOR SURE in another uni, because as Dave says, and I concur Dr Z believes that to be most likely occurance.
Value is in the eye of the beholder. That value has been measured.
I trust Jack.
From Baker “He (Zduriencik) did add, though, that the Roy Halladay portion of the Lee deal, which Toronto was involved in, might have created scenarios on Toronto’s end that made acquiring Morrow more of a priority.”
I still believe that this Morrow deal is part of the same deal as the Cliff Lee deal as it would explain why Philly didn’t just keep both Halladay and Cliff Lee. Here’s how I think it broke down:
a) Seattle and Toronto were talking a month ago and Toronto found that Morrow is potentially available.
b) Halladay wanted to go to Philly and a few other teams. Toronto approached those teams.
c) Philly approached Toronto and told them that they wanted Halladay. They were hoping to get both Halladay and Cliff Lee.
d) Being in rebuilding mode, Toronto wanted to get prospects + a young starting pitcher to replace Halladay.
e) Philly had the prospects but not the young starting pitcher that Toronto covets.
f) Toronto then told Philly that Seattle had the starting pitcher that Toronto wanted – Morrow.
g) After hearing that Seattle lost out on the Rich Harden sweepstakes, they immediately approached Seattle. Seattle said the only pitcher they’re interested in is Cliff Lee.
h) Philly didn’t want to give up Cliff Lee, but they liked Halladay more than Cliff Lee. So they agreed with the exchange of prospects for Cliff Lee.
i) The baseball commish gave them only 72 hours to consummate the deal. With all the players involved and with their histories of injuries, they decided to make this into 2 separate deals.
Oh yes,
And if he SUCCEEDS as a closer great for him. Equal value obtained most likely.
Starter RISK as some have mentioned previously is covered by the A leaguer.
So Morrow wasn’t a good bet to be an effective starter during the ’08 season? Sounds like a prediction that was dead on to me.
@ Kranepool: best observation I’ve seen in a long time, and applicable to so many of these moves that the sports mathematicians seem semi-oblivious to.
For anybody who has played on any team loaded with talented individuals and tons of “upside” in terms of championship potential, you cannot quantify character and morale through metrics analysis. I have been lucky enough to play on a number of all-star, all-league and select squads over the years, and nothing wore down a team like the proverbial bad apple, or the guy whose god-given skills were crippled by his lousy work ethic.
In this trade, as well as things such as the Griffey re-signing(s) and the Sweeney signing last year, there are intangibles we as fans are not privy to that transcend graphs and sabermetrics.
Anywho, Happy Festivus!
Boy, it sure never hurts to have that old chestnut brought up again and again, usually as an excuse for people to brag about their awesome athletic background.
Anyway, we’ve discussed it before. Catch up.
YAYYYYYYYYYY GRAPHS AND SABERMETRICS
Dude, I was on a number of championship graphing teams. You just can’t appreciate it because you were never a part of it, since you were out playing sports instead.
It’s true, it’s true, I can’t.. I can’t draw parabolas freehand. Why did you have to bring that up?
I think it’s pretty clear that Morrow’s career path will not follow that of either Ryan or RJ, two of the most durable pitchers in MLB history, or Lefty Grove (whose career arc had to do with staying too long in the minors because the IL Orioles didn’t have to give him up to the majors). Koufax and Richard aren’t anyone’s good comps for health reasons (though of course Morrow may follow the same path for a different health reason). With respect, Johnny Vander Meer wouldn’t be remembered today at all if he didn’t have one good week. His peak seasons were mainly during the war years. If Morrow turns into Vander Meer, we are likely to “win” the trade.
I’m a champion grapher but recently there have been rumors that I use a PED (performance enhancing device, aka, a graphing scientific calculator)…
I’m not here to talk about the past though…
I am with Dave on this. Compare the records of Mark Langston and Randy Johnson up until age 25 and it looks pretty much like Morrow with more innings. ERA well over 4, 5-6 BBs per 9 innings, etc.. Both those guys started to settle down at about the age that Morrow is at.
I think the M’s gave up way to fast on a guy with lots of potential. This is one they may regret.
Sure, that’s likely. But that’s not the point. What does Snell offer that Morrow does not?
The ability to throw 200 innings if everything falls into place. Morrow was never going to be allowed to do that, not to mention the likelihood that he would be unable to do it.
.
Actually, I don’t think Randy settled down until he was 30, at least if you’re talking about control. He had a monster BB/9 rate until he was 30 or 31. Same with Nolan Ryan. Thing is, both those guys were still better than Morrow when they had “youthful” control problems.
Plus, like I said a few comments above, if Morrow develops into a HOF starter when he’s 30, it’s no skin off the M’s nose, since he’d be a FA then and nobody’s suggesting we should’ve bought out his arb years and locked him up to a long term deal.
As far as the “4/60 ain’t such bad odds” argument, all four of those guys (Nolan Ryan, Lefty Grove, JR Richard, Johnny Vander meer) had thrown at least one season of over 100 IP and posted at least one season with a sub-4.00 FIP by the time they were Morrow’s age. Morrow hasn’t cracked 70 MLB innings in a year yet, and his best FIP was his rookie season at 4.18. Most of those other guys had even higher BB/9 rates than Morrow during their early 20′s, but lower FIPs. Flat out, those four guys were just better pitchers than Morrow even before they’d figured out control. Morrow might turn into a decent pitcher, but he doesn’t have the stuff to join that particular foursome. Which means he’s most likely one of the other 56/60.
I moderately dislike the trade, but I don’t think it’s a disaster. It’s possible the M’s may regret it, but I don’t think it’s likely.
Nice, fellas. I have a growing appreciation of the wit and statistical analysis in play on this site.
I only mentioned my involvement in team sports as a qualifier for my ensuing argument, just as the stat-heads reference their CPA and Business 101 backgrounds before launching into another metrics-backed tirade about Bill Bavasi.
Bemoaning the loss of a Morrow or the addition of a Griffey – at least in the lion’s share of posts here – tends to be lopsided in favor of the hard numbers over the also important intangibles, which Kranepool was suggesting we don’t have at our disposal as outsiders.
Keep up the award-winning graphing, sabermetricizing and rosterbating; I’ll keep coming back for more. And when you feel threatened, keep ganging up and whacking the detractors with your protractors.
Right. I can’t tell you how many times I fell down on my knees to thank God that we had the likes of Willie Bloomquist and Ronny Cedeno, rather than Manny Ramirez on our team. Baseball is full of cautionary stories like Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle that never reached their true potential because of partying too much and not keeping themselves in shape. Not to mention attitude problems like Ty Cobb, or self promoters and stat padders like Ricky Henderson.
Suffering through both the “good chemistry” 2004 season (99 losses) and the “bad chemistry” 2008 one (101 losses), I know the “intangibles” don’t outweigh established trends and numbers. However, I wasn’t suggesting a whole team of Designated Ticklers either.
Okay, back to the stoning.
“No one…is to stone any one…until I blow this whistle.”
“Even…and I want to make this ABSOLUTELY CLEAR…if they do say Jehovah.”
*rain of stones ensues*
And when you feel threatened, keep ganging up and whacking the detractors with your protractors.
Damn, you are out of place. We’re shanking them with a compass, dawg…
(by the way, when you get down off the cross, you should read the post about evaluating chemistry that I linked)
Not to nitpick, but Randy’s bb/9 dropped dramatically at 29. I would say record-wise Randy pitched more innings and had more decisions since he mostly started even in the early years, but ERA, ratio W/L, H/9, etc. are not that far from what Morrow was doing back then. The stats would not say that early Randy was better than early Morrow – stats just don’t back that up. But how to project forward??? Lots of pitchers look like Randy’s early years – few look like Randy’s later years. Nevertheless, should it happen……? Why put yourself in that position for a 7th inning reliever?
Of course! Brandon Morrow = Randy Johnson
One of those two things is true.
Also: pretty much every “stat-head tirade” about Bavasi turned out right, while every team-sports chemistry argument fell flat. Sooooo maybe you want to reconsider which arguments you’re picking.
(…skipping….)
Yes. We’re a gang. A craaaaaaazy gang that composes some minute fraction of online baseball discussion, oppressing evvvvveryone else and keeping them from talking about team chemistry, intangibles. Why, it’s terrible how small, unnoticed blogs like this conspire to keep Rick Reilly and his ilk from making tons of money espousing your viewpoints!
Briggstar, come out of the closet. Come on, Briggstar, come out of the closet. Briggstar, come out of the closet. Come out of the closet Briggstar…..
kranepool said –
of course not, any more than
Ed Kranepool=Johnny Bench
To be fair, the quote came from the comments section from discussion on the article linked. While Dave’s piece originally discussed Morrow’s chances in 2008, the discussion diverged into Morrow’s career prospects.
MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODY!!!
To one of the most intelligent and cogent bunch’a writers and readers I know of online- I’m glad we’re fans of the same team.
May 2010 fulfill all you guys’ dreams and wishes. Not the least of which would be a Mariners World Series….
Beers on me once I finally get to meet some of you in person…
[ot]
To the original author: I agree with you.
You left out mention that the M’s also got a prospect.
I hate it, just hate it, when teams give up on young players. Even if Morrow never becomes a great pitcher, he will be cheap, and so there is value in that alone. Also, he has a much higher ceiling than League. Sometimes, it’s better just to hold on to what you have, and realize that there is no such thing as a perfect baseball team and it’s futility to try to build one.
This trade reminds me of our Q and A with Jack and Tony last year. Jack himself brought up the topic of Morrow’s spring training mishandling(I think he was surprised none of us did, and seemed eager to give his version of events). Jack said rather emphatically that Morrow was put in the pen during ST because they were almost in panic mode at the time regarding the pen. Aardsma hadn’t yet asserted himself yet, Lowe was still struggling and basically everyone else was a big question mark.
It was the same reason Bavasi and Hargrove put Morrow in the pen the first time – panic over bullpen options leaving ST.
I think Jack simply didn’t want to begin next season assuming he’d have a bullpen ready for war in April. And I think GMs feel much better going to war with a weak 4 and 5 starter than they do about a shaky bullpen. Given the choice of a solid 1-3 and solid bullpen, or a solid 1-3 with upside with 4 and 5 but a shaky bullpen, my guess is most GM’s of a team whose goal is to win a World Series will take the former.
And remember, Jack told us rather emphatically that day as well that their goal was to win a World Series.
Merry Christmas, hope Santa brought you all season tickets (or at least good seats to a few choice games) and a copy of The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball.
Well, W-L, ERA, and H/9 are not really quality statistics to compare pitchers on. K/9, BB/9 and FIP are better, since they focus on what the pitcher’s doing, rather than his fielders and run support. Also, I’m not sure Randy Johnson is a good guy to compare most pitchers to, since his height made his development significantly different than 99% of everyone else. With that kind of wingspan, control comes pretty slowly. Randy Johnson didn’t make it to the bigs until he was 24, and that year only pitched in 4 games (all starts, 1 CG, 26 IP). Really his 25 year old year was his first full season, while Morrow got started three years younger.
Plus, Johnson rarely did anything but start even his first few years, while Morrow has pitched 60% of his innings as a reliever so far. As Dave pointed out earlier in the thread, pitching from the bullpen improves results. Raw Randy had better stuff than Raw Brandon (compare FIPs and BB/9). So, Morrow can still develop into a quality starter, but he’s almost certainly not going to be in Randy Johnson’s class. His stats through age 24 compare more with someone like Jim Hannan (an average-minus starter who had a couple of good years but never even got close to 200 IP in any season), or Terry Adams (decent reliever who could swing into the rotation on occasion) or guys like Danys Baez and Bill Caudill, good relievers who never started a game after their early 20′s. Those guys aren’t his upside, they’re more like his median projection, and certainly not awful projections. But really, if he turns into Randy Johnson, lots of people will offer to eat their hats.
As far as “giving up too early”, non-Arb years are way more valuable than arb years, and Morrow is about out of his, so he’ll be cheap, but not cheap-cheap. Compare arb and non-arb eligible players by WAR (wins are worth about $4.5M/win on the FA market, Arb-eligible players seem to make about $2M/win, non-arb players make $0.5M regardless. Someone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on any of these numbers):
WAR / FA value / non-arb Salary : Value / arb-elig salary : value
0.5 / $2.25M / $0.5M : $1.75M / $1.0M : $1.25M
1.0 / $4.5M / $0.5M : $4.0M / $2.0M : $2.5M
1.5 / $6.75M / $0.5M : $6.25M / $3.0M : $3.75M
2.0 / $9.0M / $0.5M : 8.5M / $4.0M : $5.0M
2.5 / $11.25 / $0.5M : $10.75M / $5M : $6.25M
3.0 / $13.5M / $0.5M : $13.0M / $6.0M : $7.5M
Look at it this way. Set aside Brandon League for the moment and consider Yo Hermin alone. Suppose he’s a 0.5 WAR player for his non-arb years and a 1.0 WAR player for his arb years. He’d be a net $12.75 M asset while under club control. If Morrow is a league average starter for his three non-Arb years, he’ll be a net $15M asset. Not saying Chavez will be that – he’s a long way away, but his clock hasn’t started. Morrow’s is half-done, and he’s averaged less than 0.5 WAR per season (and most of that as a reliever).
I think you hit the nail on the head, Rick M. Whatever else you can say about him, Morrow’s ratio of management time to WAR was pretty high. Unless one thinks he will turn out to be the next Randy Johnson (and the trade indicates Zduriencik doesn’t), it’s not a totally unreasonable position to think that having someone you can rely on to fill a particular role on the roster from day one is an advantage if you’re moving all in for the 2010 season, rather than someone whose role seems to morph a couple of times every season. I’m not using that as a justification of the deal, but as an explanation, I think it fits the facts pretty well.
This was a quote from an old post by Dave. I think it’s fair to say Dave isn’t Morrow’s biggest fan, yet, he still thinks it was a lopsided trade.
As for the “odds”, I think this comparison is a little better. BTW, Morrow makes this list if you use his career numbers or only his numbers as a starter. So, yeah, I do like those odds.
To that I can only say… how much has Brandon Morrow improved as a pitcher since that post was written?
What’s really your point?
Are we not discussing the post?
Dave’s having misgivings about trading a man whose flaws as a developing pitcher and longshot odds to self-actualize as a quality SP he made clear a long time ago.
I can understand the emotional reasons for fans to have those misgivings, but there are plenty of reasons why Morrow’s chances of becoming a good enough starting pitcher to make this deal look bad in hindsight are dim at best.
This all comes down to your belief in League v. Morrow. I think Z has a pretty good baseball mind, and if he thinks League provides something more for this club I’ll believe him. Also, getting another prospect to stock in the farm system, especially a potential power outfielder, is nice incentive after giving up prospects in the Lee trade.
There’s likely a lot to this trade we’ll never appreciate. Maybe Z thinks Morrow is too freaked to succeed here, maybe there’s a chemistry issue, maybe Morrow is unhappy, maybe Z thinks Morrow’s potential isn’t really there and he’s dealing before other GM’s figure it out. Too many maybes.
We simply do not know. We can only guess. As it is, I think this trade looks okay on paper, but paper isn’t the end all be all of the game.
I don’t know if this is accurate, for a few reasons.
Your 0.5 WAR historical for Morrow is potential misleading, because: (1) up to now, Morrow has been a reliever; relievers are generally less valuable than starters, (2) I said “I don’t like it when clubs give up on players” – meaning clubs that trade young players before giving them a chance to mature. A mature Morrow would not be a reliever; he would be a starter. Even a league average starter at less than $5M per year is quite valuable these days I would guess.
My point, I guess, was why trade a #5 overall pick with great stuff for a reliever? Sure, League is a great reliever, but he is a reliever nonetheless. Not that he’s not a valuable piece, but there may have been more creative (and less potentially costly) ways to add bullpen depth?
The other thing is, do you think, had Z drafted Morrow, Z would be so quick to get rid of him? No, I don’t think so – Z would’ve been much more likely to keep him. But because another GM drafted him, I think he was quicker to ship him off.
I just wanted to add, because I didn’t really see the sentence where you said,
…for his nonarb years? What about his arb years? Those are still likely to be good deals for the M’s; as long as he’s not a FA.
Again if this was part of the Cliff Lee deal, or part of another deal to get some hard to get piece like a SP or a great hitter, OK, but for a reliever, I just am not sure if it works.