Yankees overhaul bullpen
Slipping under the wire of that other big story today were two trades the Yankees made. One makes a lot of sense. The other, not so much.
Trade A: The Yankees send Kenny Lofton and cash to Philadelphia for Felix Rodriguez.
Despite the fact that Joe Torre refused to use him in the playoffs last year, Lofton was still a fairly useful player, almost exactly league average as a center fielder. His speed is almost gone, but he still gets on base at a decent clip and covers enough ground to not embarrass himself in center field. However, he turns 38 next May and is due $3 million next year, and the Yankees decided they needed bullpen help more than they needed an expensive fourth outfielder. Felix Rodriguez isn’t the dominating setup man he was in 2001, but he’s still pretty darn good, posting good numbers across the board. He’ll become the Yankees third best RHP out of the pen and give them some depth in the middle innings. Total cost to upgrade the pen? About $1 million, plus the bonus of removing a player they didn’t want around.
This trade makes a lot less sense for Philadelphia, unless they spend that $1 million really well. Lofton isn’t the flycatcher the Phillies need in between Burrell and Abreu, and he’s not the leadoff hitter they’ve been looking for. He’s a nice spare part now occupying a position where the Phillies had an opportunity to get significantly better. The opportunity cost of filling the CF gap is the real problem here. The Phillies saved some cash, but they just made it that much harder to improve themselves. Ed Wade continues to spin his heels with a roster that should be much better than it is.
The best news out of this deal, though, is that those infernal Randy Winn for Ryan Howard suggestions can finally die. Hallelujah.
Trade B:
The Yankees sent Felix Heredia to the Mets for Mike Stanton and $1 million in cash.
Heredia was the Yankees version of Shigetoshi Hasegawa. He posted a superficially solid ERA in 2003 and earned a nifty little two year deal for his work. His ratios said the performance wasn’t sustainable, and wham, a 6.28 ERA in 2004 earns him a trip to Queens. Ironically, the Yankees may have made almost the same move they did last year when they gave Heredia that extension. Stanton’s 3.16 ERA for the Mets last year might remind some of his 2001 dominance in the Bronx, but he clearly wasn’t the same pitcher. His ratios have plummeted and his effectiveness against southpaws is almost completely gone (they hit .269/.370/.426 against him last year). Heading into his age 38 season, there’s little chance Stanton will post an ERA below 4.00 again, and he’s a decent bet to end up with an ERA somewhere around Heredia’s.
The money the Mets are sending only covers half the difference in contracts, so the Yankees paid another $1 million for this supposed upgrade. Don’t be surprised when Stanton is filling Heredia’s role as the Lefty-That-Joe-Torre-Is-Too-Afraid-To-Use next October, however.
More fun with Jim Street
Okay, I’m not trying to be mean here, but doesn’t Jim Street have some kind of responsibility to his boss to make sure that he writes things that aren’t so factually incorrect that they can be refuted in about 45 seconds?
In response to a question about moving the fences in, Street answers:
If Bavasi and manager Mike Hargrove want to have the fences moved in, it would be considered, but no such request has been made. The Mariners have enjoyed tremendous success at Safeco Field since the facility opened midway through the 1999 season and actually have hit better at home than on the road (emphasis mine). The club hit 71 home runs at home last season and 65 on the road, while opposing teams hit 108 home runs at Safeco. So, why move the fences in and make it easier for opponents to hit home runs?
Mariners, 2004:
Home: .255/.322/.385, 3.81 runs per game
Road: .284/.339/.407, 4.81 runs per game
Mariners, 2003:
Home: .264/.342/.398, 4.86 runs per game
Road: .278/.346/.422, 4.95 runs per game
Mariners, 2002:
Home: .264/.346/.397, 4.54 runs per game
Road: .285/.354/.440, 5.50 runs per game
In each of the past three seasons, the Mariners have posted a higher batting average, on base percentage, slugging percentage, and number of runs scored per game on the road. Yes, they hit 6 more home runs at Safeco last year, but over the three year period of 2002-2004, the team hit nineteen more homers on the road. Not only is six home runs over 6,000 at-bats statistically insignificant, it was a statistical fluke.
The sad part, honestly, is that Street obviously looked up the home/road splits in order to publish the home run numbers. That he could look at these numbers, then publically state that the Mariners hit better at home than on the road just baffles the mind.
Steroids and condemnation
This took me almost a day to write, so please, forgive me if it’s a little dense and long.
There are a couple of distinct and separate issues with the BALCO testimony and Barry Bonds in particular, and it’s important before I go on to make these clear.
What exactly came out of this last leak, and what does it change?
Is the use of performance-enhancing drugs bad, in general or for specific types of drugs?
Do steroids help players?
Did Barry Bonds use steroids, and if so, knowingly or unknowingly?
Am I a Bonds partisan who is only defending him for nefarious reasons?
To the last one, I long ago admitted that I thought it was only matter of time before it came out. My approach, in the steroid controversies as in all baseball things, is that I try to see where reason takes me, and if it doesn’t get me all the way there, when I write about it I try to be good about what’s fact and what’s my interpretation.
For steroid use, this has meant that I weighed the evidence and found it lacking. The appearance-change argument is the weakest of all arguments, but none of them met the standard I’d require to come out and say that a particular player used steroids. To be entirely clear — I think there are players on these drugs. I think I could make a list of guys I was pretty sure about, and if we could conclusively prove it one way or another, that list would be proven out.
But I don’t want to write about rumors and speculation like that. I want to be a good analyst, a decent humorist, not a dirt-monger, and I think there’s a huge difference between trafficing in M’s front-office gossip and writing something that potentially helps taint a player’s career.
All the rest of these are far more complicated than coverage so far has made them.
To dismiss another one quickly: “Do steroids help players?” I’m not convinced that they do. We don’t have data on this. They clearly can make players stronger, but whether the overall effects translate into better performance, we don’t know, and we won’t ever know, because it would require a long-term study with many players who do and don’t use, and we’ll never get that.
So to the issue of morals. “Is the use of performance-enhancing drugs bad, in general or for specific types of drugs?”
I oppose any athlete using a drug that produces a short-term gain for a long-term cost in health. Legal or illegal, it doesn’t matter to me. I agree entirely with those
who argue that if you’re a normal, healthy athlete, you shouldn’t have to make a choice between keeping up with another player using harmful drugs and behing healthy enough to play catch with their kids in ten years.
This is part of why I have such trouble watching football: these 300+ pound lineman are offering themselves up to diabetes and all kinds of joint problems for the rest of their lives for a four, five year career in the trenches.
But the line between what’s going on is entirely unclear. Elite athletes all use supplements of one kind or another. It could be super-concentrated meals-in-a-shake recovery drinks, or vitamain and mineral supplements. Many use legal supplements that are natural… sort of. Like creatine, which may help build twitch muscle bulk. You could get that kind of creatine in your system naturally. You would have to drink fish smoothies all day, but it could be done. And yet no one really knows what the long-term effects of creatine use are — and even the performance studies are inconsistent about the benefits. People use it like crazy. But it seems like it should be safe (except for the flatulence and need for super-hydration… no, really).
Now, steroids like the one Jason Giambi supposedly testified taking, that are illegal for healthy people and can have all kinds of side effects: clearly wrong.
But what about new, unproven, legal drugs, like THG was? Or the now-banned set of steroid precursors like andro that Mark McGwire used? These are almost like creatine: they directly or indirectly change the body in a way that would be difficult to practically do without them.
If an athlete is taking a legal but unproven drug, is that bad, or just aggressively searching for an advantage?
This is an entirely practical question. I’ve written before that designer steroids are decades ahead of testing, and the THG scandal’s proven that. Conte comes out and says it in his interview with ESPN. If Bonds and Sheffield and Giambi are all tossed out of baseball tomorrow, there will be many, many other athletes in many sports using THG-like drugs and testing negative for banned performance enhancing drugs.
And we’re never going to know if these are safe. Much of what goes on with players who use these drugs is vodoo without the oral history of what’s effective. Each athlete’s relying on someone to come up with schedules, etc, based on their best guesses for effectiveness and safety, which in turn is based on their ability to do research on (for instance) trials of similar products on sick people. The people working on this stuff are really smart, but without wide clinical trials… there’s a degree of uncertainty those who use choose to live with.
So now go back to our mythical innocent player, using legal, healthy supplements and working out all the time. He knows the guy competing with him is using something crazy, a new testosterone enhancer called NMM, say. No one knows if it’s safe, or how effective it is, though he’s asked his trainer, who asked around and reported that the word is it’s safe, undetectable, and great for building muscle mass. It’s legal because no one’s heard of it.
What’s this guy do?
I don’t have an easy answer. I don’t want him to face that question, but in a sense, it’s the same question he faces over creatine, or any other supplement, except that there are far more unknowns and potential harm with NMM.
So do you legislate what supplements can be taken, limiting that set to a small number of drugs that have gone through wide clinical trials? Limit trainers to a set of qualified, certified people who understand that list and its application thoroughly?
And then if NMM’s undetectable, aren’t we back where we started?
There’s no easy answer. I applauded MLB and MLBPA when they ignored the Canseco-incited hysteria to come up with a reasoned, measured approach that tried to determine the extent of abuse (though that test was, I understand, pretty laughable) and included work on trying to educate players coming up on the risks involved. Because you’re not going to catch the NMMs, enforcement of a banned substance list can only be part of any solution.
I know, it sucks. I wish I had a brilliant solution in here, too. I don’t. No one does.
This leaves us with two questions:
Did Barry Bonds use steroids, and if so, knowingly or unknowingly?
What exactly came out of this last leak, and what does it change?
Many people have looked at this last leak and said Bonds admitted using steroids. But he doesn’t. He says he trusted his friend, and took a bunch of stuff for other problems. He says he doesn’t believe his friend would have given him steroids.
The prosecution questions him at length about how Anderson had drug schedules, and how the items Bonds describes using (which Bonds claims he thought was flaxseed oil, for instance) are matches for these substances, like “the cream”.
Bonds’ line here is pretty much that he took stuff, didn’t know what it was, certainly didn’t know it was steroids, and doesn’t think it was anyway.
I’ve followed Bonds’ career most of my life, appreciating both his accomplishments — regardless of what people argue about his late-career surge, Barry’s been an elite player for his whole career — and acknowledging that he has problems dealing with the press, comes off as arrogant (and why not, I said, he’s Barry Bonds).
The same qualities that led me to defend him: knowing how fanatical about his workouts he was, how serious he got about nutrition late in his career, all the things he did that allowed him to age so well and explained his performance, these things all now make the case that he used the worst BALCO had to offer, and that he’s lying about it now.
I can’t believe that Bonds, this fanatical trainer, eater, control-freak about his work, would use random supplements handed to him by anyone without a good explanation. Or that he would continue to work with this guy knowing he was involved in some really strange stuff. Though Barry’s got little use for image, he must have understood the risks that ran. Even as I believe in the world of the elite athlete it must be hard to find trainers who don’t have some connection, it seems strange to me that Bonds wouldn’t actively seek to keep his reputation cleaner.
It’s possible, too, that Bonds knew he’d be given something without knowing how, and so he’d be supplied with stuff to take, and with full knowledge that there was something in one of them, took the vitamin supplement, applied the oil, drank the cola… and maintained deniability that he didn’t know that any of those items specifically contained the magic pixie dust.
Which then brings up a new question: assume Bonds was using THG. At the time, it was legal. What if he was using something illegal, too, like HGH? Does the difference matter? What does this mean for him, and the game?
It’s bad. You can agree with me that the issues around supplements are complicated and also see that this is bad for baseball. I don’t understand why people see steroid use by a player as worse than gambling on games, but they do. I don’t understand why there’s a desire to tear down his marks (would you restore them in the future when strength-building drugs are legal, safe, and widely used?) and yet I know there are people who want to see that happen.
More than anything, I feel let down. I’ve always known these truths about the choices elite athletes make, and there’s something Conte touches on in his interview that rings particularly true: for someone who has always dreamed of competing in the Olympics, for instance, many get to a point in their career where on top of everything they’ve ever done, they need to inject something strange and unknown, or their ascension will stop. Punishment is meaningless in that choice: it’s either become the best, or fail, and failure by way of drug testing may be more shameful than failure by way of competition, but it is still not the goal they strived for.
It makes me sad that athletes have to make that choice. But like everyone else, I don’t have a good solution, or soothing words to salve the conscience. Bonds and Giambi and the rest may fall, but the problem would remain, and as long as it’s there, I will get no satisfaction from the temporary victories in prosecuting a few who got caught.
The starter/reliever prospect post
My distaste for having good minor league pitchers relieve in the minors has come up before, so by request here’s my view in a little more detail.
If a minor league pitcher has good stuff, even if it’s only two good pitches, they should start until their progression stalls. You want to get these kids as much experience as you can, and the regular, pitch-count protection of starting allows a team to get them a lot of playing time (starting pitcher: 200+ innings, reliever: 50-80) throwing to live batters in game situations. Between starts, you get quality side sessions with the coaching staff. If they’ve got two pitches, that’s a lot of time to try and figure out how to spot a new pitch.
Even then, a two-pitch starter can be effective if those two pitches are nasty enough, and the way to refine craft is to get them experience and instruction, and that’s starting.
There’s a case that pitchers who are unsucessful starting can succeed in relief, because they can put more on each pitch, not worrying about endurance, plus repetoire limitations become less important.
I agree — but I don’t want to concede that before you absolutely must.
Another argument is made relieving is different, that coming into a game in progress is so crazy that pitchers have to be prepared for it — that you can’t have a starter convert after a couple years of minor league experience. If you think someone’s a reliever, you should train them to be a reliever. I’ve never seen any evidence to support this. Relievers are, by and large, converted relievers. Few elite relievers were minor league relievers.
I think the opposite is true, though. If a team drafts a college closer, has them close all through the minors, then take over the closer’s job for the big team, you’ll never know if that guy could ever have been a quality starter. While there may be many starter candidates for conversion to the bullpen, someone who builds their whole career off a couple pitches thrown as hard as they can until they fall over is rarely going to be an easy conversion project.
Let your most talented pitchers start until the force a move to relief on their own. It’s that simple.
Bonds denies accidental steroids use
SF Chronicle again breaks leaked testimony:
Barry Bonds told a federal grand jury that he used a clear substance and a cream supplied by the Burlingame laboratory now enmeshed in a sports doping scandal, but he said he never thought they were steroids, The Chronicle has learned.
Or, to be more specific:
Bonds said that as far as he knew, Anderson had given him only legal products to treat the arthritis and fatigue that afflicted him, especially when playing a day game after a night game.
You may note that despite the content of what Bonds said, many headlines read “Bonds admits steroid use/Bonds admits accidental steroid use” and so forth, despite that not happening.
You can also read Victor Conte’s side of things on ESPN.
Considering the wonder that was yesterday’s comments section, no one should be surprised that I’m not turning them on for this one. Please do not carry steroid discussion into other threads. If you have something you want us to write about in particular, email us.
My editorial post on all of this is in progress. It may take a while. Please be patient.
Ron Villone
Well, it’s Christmas, so I guess you can’t blame Ron Villone for wishing.
“A two-year contract would be nice,” the 34-year-old said from his offseason home in New Jersey, “and I definitely would have to put Seattle on the top of the list.”
Among other things that would be “nice” for me this December:
Nikon 80-200 2.8
Epson 2200
VW Jetta V
I don’t have a prayer of getting any of these things for Christmas. I don’t even have the cajones to ask. Though, honestly, it’d be a better investment for the Mariners to buy me some new wheels than it would be to hand Ron Villone a two year contract. More fun from the article.
He appeared in 56 games, going 2-2 with a 5.43 ERA in 10 starts…
Okay, so, let’s be honest, he was awful as a starter. Awful.
and was 6-4 with a 2.95 ERA in 46 relief appearances.
But was a moderately effective reliever. All while posting mediocre ratios that point to the success being related to non-repeatable skills. Remember 2003 Shigetoshi Hasegawa? Meet the left-handed version.
The M’s bullpen for 2005 currently consists of Eddie Guradado, Shigetoshi Hasegawa, J.J. Putz, George Sherrill, Julio Mateo, and Scott Atchison. Is Villone significantly better than any of these pitchers?
Handing Ron Villone a two year contract would be a gigantic waste of resources. I’m not in favor of bringing him back at all, but if the team is required by law to have a left-hander over the age of 30, can we please limit the damage to one season?
Kendry Morales
By request, here’s my quick take on the Angels signing of Kendry Morales to a six year major league contract, including a $3 million signing bonus, with incentives that could push the total possible value to $10 million.
It’s a big risk, one I’m not sure is justifiable. Everybody who saw him agrees that he’s got work to do before he’s an impact major league player, and most teams wanted him to start the season in the minors. The signing is essentially equivalent to contracts handed out to the top selections in the amateur draft the past few seasons. By comparison, the Brewers gave Rickie Weeks, a college player drafted #2 overall and believed to be not far from the majors, a 5 year major league contract with $3.6 million signing bonus, $4.8 million guaranteed (including the bonus), and a $5.5 million value if all incentives are reached. The Angels paid Morales comparably to an elite draft choice. Is he that kind of player?
I doubt it. There’s a reason teams just don’t select first baseman that highly in the draft. Not one amateur first baseman was selected last June. Billy Butler, taken #11 overall, will likely end up at first eventually despite being selected as a third baseman, but the fact that a player with his offensive abilities slipped to the eleventh spot speaks to how highly teams value defensive ability in their prospects. If you’re going to be an impact first baseman, you’re going to have to hit an absolute ton, and the hitting tool is by far the hardest to scout. Compound that with the limited information clubs had in regards to Morales compared to a normal prospect, and the ability to project his bat at the major league level is even more difficult. If he doesn’t hit, he’s not going to be worth a darn, and the Angels will be out around $5-6 million. That’s a significant amount of money to any franchise.
Morales may work out and become a solid contributor. But by including incentives that make his total contract worth $10 million, the odds of him being a huge bargain are pretty slim. The best case scenario is that they’ve got a good player making pretty good money. It just doesn’t seem that the reward justifies the significant risk in this signing. I’m glad the M’s didn’t make this kind of commitment to Morales.
Giambi steroid testimony leaks
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Jason Giambi testified before a grand jury that he used steroids in 2003 and for two years before that. The 2003 steroids were obtained from Gary Anderson, who is Barry Bonds’ trainer. Jeremy Giambi, who you may remember from his brief prospect-dom, also testified that he used steroids. You can construct a whole timeline here of what he took and when if you want.
Or, if you want it second-hand:MSNBC link
MLB.com link
I don’t care what your stance on this is, if this is true than you have to admit that the continuing leaks out of this investigation are ridiculous. Beyond being illegal, why would anyone cooperate with a grand jury investigation any more than they absolutely had to if they knew thier testimony would become public? Especially in a case like this?
On a larger note… every time I think it would be hard for this mess to get uglier, I’m shocked at how easily it overcomes my doubts.
To me, the tough part is (as the Chronicle notes) that Clomid’s side effects include
Headaches, hot flashes. Can exacerbate pituitary gland tumors.
Which is what the New York Daily News reported Giambi suffered from this year — in a story that, oddly, mentions that Giambi was taking corticosteroids (which are not performance enhancers) as part of his treatment for the tumor, steroids which caused him to test positive for steroids but not the ones he’d actually been taking since 2001.
To Jeremy Giambi’s admissions — knowing this, it might offer some insight into why the A’s purged him abruptly in mid-2002, getting almost nothing (well, John Mabry, who performed well for them) in exchange for Jeremy, who was hitting .274/.390/.471 at the time (and was cheap to play). Even if the A’s didn’t know, which seems unlikely, they must have suspected, and I see how something like his reputed partying could easily suddenly tip the team against him.
Really, if you’re a GM and you knew or suspected with a good degree of confidence that a player on your team was using illegal steroids, and that player was showing troubling signs of getting into other behaviors that potentially could affect their play, like staying out all night on road trips, isn’t there a good chance you’d try to make him someone else’s problem as fast as you could? Even knowing that because baseball’s a small game, you’re going to have to be up-front about the why, and hope someone’s willing to take the gamble and give you a token back to show the fans?
Anyway. This whole thing stinks.
Delgado, Sexson
David Andriesen of the PI writes about the team’s free agent pursuits, and it’s reassuring:
The two top-tier free agents are Carlos Delgado and Richie Sexson, and the Mariners are thought to be after both. Contrary to recent reports, however, the twin pursuits are about keeping options open and will almost certainly not lead to acquiring both players.
“Recent reports” being the Seattle Times, mostly. Anyway, yay!
One possible hitch for the public relations-minded Mariners is Delgado’s quiet refusal to stand for the national anthem, a conviction that has rubbed many wrong.
This is not true. Delgado, when it’s possible, doesn’t stand and take his hat off for “God Bless America” which, as you probably know by now, I detest hearing at baseball games (I’ll spare you that argument for now). He avoids being on the field when it’s sung if he can, so as to not make it an issue.
To quote the Balitmore Sun, for one:
Delgado isn’t sitting out the national anthem. He’s sitting out a song that is played in some ballparks during the seventh-inning stretch at the direction of baseball commissioner Bud Selig.
Other articles that talk about this are available all over the place. Newsday. I’d cite the New York Times (July 21, 2004) on this, but you have to buy the article and… no. But here:
Last March when the United States invaded Iraq, Delgado, in his own quiet way, said that for him, enough was enough. He had stood for “God Bless America” through the 2003 season but vowed not to do so this season.”
This should not be a big deal. It’s not the national anthem. And even if it was… so what? If Seattle can’t accept a good guy who is anti-war, I’m going to be even more disappointed in humanity than normal.
Pizza Feed Reminder
Yes, I’m back to pimp for the second annual U.S.S. Mariner Pizza Feed. We’ve got a good sized crowd confirmed already, but still have some space available if you’d like to come and talk baseball with the gang from USSM, a large group of readers, and some special guests. And there’s food. Details below.
When?: December 18th from 12 pm to 5 pm.
Where?: Horace Mann Elementary School in Redmond.
Who?: Derek, Jason, Dave, you, and various special guests who you’ll enjoy meeting.
How much?: $15 per person
Is there food?: Enough pizza, salad, and sides for lunch and a small dinner (New York Vinnie excluded)
Great! Now what? If you’re going to attend, you must do three things:
1. Email us with the name of each person you’re confirming attendance for.
2. You’ll receive an address in response to mail your check to. Payment in advance is required; your spot is not guaranteed until we receive your money.
3. Show up on the 18th.
We’re getting close to the deadline for confirming your attendance, since I have to place a rather large food order in advance. Hope to see you all on the 18th.