Jones spent Super Bowl Sunday being poked and prodded
Hickey o’er at the PI reported Jones was in Baltimore for his physical yesterday. It probably means we’ll hear the announcement today or tomorrow.
I almost don’t see what the point of having comments open would be: is there anything new to say about the trade itself or how crazy this whole thing’s been? I feel like we should just come up with a sheet of stock comments you can refer to easily — anti/pro/neutral, numbered
p1) This is a good trade
a1) This is a horrible trade
n1) We won’t know if it’s a good trade for a while
p2) They’re just prospects
a2) Bedard is just a veteran
…
and so on. Then you could just say “a1. a2, a3, a4.” and the next person can say p1. p2. p3. Save keystrokes all around.
Update: Baker chimes in that Jones is in Baltimore today:
It took a while, but we’ve finally gotten it confirmed that Adam Jones is indeed in Baltimore taking his physical today. Would have liked to have this out to you last night, but unfortunately, we could not get anyone to verify it. Finally, we can. We’d rather be a few hours late than be wrong. Remember, how often folks had said Jones was in Baltimore prior to last night?
Stone on the Bedard trade
Larry Stone, in Sunday’s Times runs down the state of the trade:
All current indications are that, after all the histrionics of the past week, the Mariners and Orioles will really, truly, actually, once and for all, no turning back, no mulligans, no backing out, no passing go, get this trade done. But check back tomorrow, because nothing is for certain in this messed-up deal.
Yeah.
Anyway, the particularly interesting part is that Stone talks about the who of the trade, and it reads like he’s a lot more sure of it than we’ve seen anywhere else:
The trio of young pitchers they’re talking to Baltimore about as part of the Erik Bedard package — 6-foot-9 Kam Mickolio, 6-foot-7 Tony Butler and 6-foot-5 Chris Tillman
then the complete deal:
If the deal turns out to be as speculated this past week — Bedard for Adam Jones, reliever George Sherrill and the aforementioned triplet towers of Tillman, Mickolio and Butler (to rank them by potential rather than height) — then the Orioles will have gone a long way toward replenishing their sagging talent base.
Ugh. What a crappy deal. I know we’ve discussed it to death here before, but every time it’s laid out like that it makes me want to throw up in my M’s cap. And then mail the cap to the team. Enough about that, though.
Here’s a fun game, though — who’s the executive?
One major-league executive said, “It’s a lot to give up, but the Mariners have to make that trade. So do the Orioles. With Felix and Bedard, it gives the Mariners a rotation that can compete with the Angels. And it gives the Orioles the pieces to rebuild a sorry situation.”
Let’s assume it’s not the Mariners or the Orioles. Probably not the Angels. If they’re being honest, it’s not one of the teams that knows how valuable that package is, and the M’s relative position in the league (I mean sure, it could be Beane trying to egg the M’s on, but I don’t see it). Someone who’d give Stone a quote while he’s working on the story for a Sunday edition, so probably someone he knows or who is known to be media-friendly…
Gillick? Kenny Williams?
PECOTAs are out! Wooooooooo!
I know this shows what a dork I am, but the PECOTA forecasts are out! Even if you’re not a fan of Steve Goldman and Dan Fox, subscribing to BP is worth it just for PECOTA season.
Fun stuff. Random notes:
* Bedard’s 2008 puts him at about +4 wins over a replacement pitcher, making him the 10th-most-valuable pitcher in baseball.
* Jones’s 2008 puts him at about +2 wins over a replacement player, and his comps are not qhat I’d expected: Steve Hosey, Chet Lemon, Larry Hisle, and Jack Clark
* Jones’ upside, which is a measure of his potential over the next five years, is 198. That’s the 19th-highest for hitters in all of baseball
* All of baseball
* It’s just behind BJ Upton and ahead of Curtis Granderson
* Bedard’s is 232, the 7th-highest pitcher number, and just ahead of Felix.
* Jones’ total contribution in 2008 is the highest of any Mariner hitter
Okay, I’ll stop with the Jones stuff. What else…hitters:
* PECOTA still hates Ichiro. I look forward to the annual “you know, I think this year it might be right” post.
* Clement comes off better than I thought he might
* Sexson bounces, but not too high
* Lopez’s line is ugly
* Wilkerson’s at .232/.326/.420, a big step back from Guillen’s 2007
* Vidro hits .282/.346/.373 which is even lower than I guessed at in the “Projecting the 2008 Mariners” post a week ago
* Balentien’s line as a major leaguer is bad
* Small steps back for Beltre, Johjima, Betancourt, Ibanez
* Bloomquist is mercifully left off
As a team, the current lineup looks like it drops 10 points of OBP and 20 points of SLG. Dropping the Ichiro forecast, it’s maybe 5 points of OBP and 10 points of slugging — so offensively, they drop a game in the standings.
Pitchers:
* Progress for Felix
* Little bit of regression for Putz
* HoRam is listed as “swing” and is bad
* Washburn and Batista both go badly (150 IP of worse than 2007)
* Silva’s line is uuuuuuuuugly. Really ugly. How bad? It’s about where Jeff Weaver’s 2008 projection is.
* Sherrill’s the third-best pitcher on the team at +13 runs over replacement (making him+Jones just shy of Bedard’s contribution)
Overall, with Bedard, it’s a low-walk, low-K staff with about a 4.50 ERA, and only one serious groundball pitcher in Felix (only one seems like an odd projection, I’ll have to think about that more). The pitching side improves, but on the whole it doesn’t improve much at all. 30 runs, maybe? I’d have to go crunch that one out — I can’t eyeball pitching stats the same way I can the offensive numbers. It might be less of an improvement, if you threw the defense in there to get to a runs-per-game number.
Anyway — yeah, check it out. I love PECOTA forecasts, and totally recommend them for your forecast needs. Nate does a great job, and I look forward to the more formal player cards. If nothing else, they’ve always served me well in thinking about comparable players, development paths, and giving me a point to challenge my own conception of a player. When the cards come out, even if you don’t normally read BP, it’d be worth a month’s subscription just to be able to browse those things.
Santana gets his extension
Reportedly a seven-year, $150m deal. Nice work if you can get it.
On Wilkerson
Just a couple years ago, I was a pretty huge Wilkerson fan, and not just because Jonah Keri forced me to pay attention to the Expos so I could understand what he was talking about all the time. Wilkerson was a pretty studly player there for a while. But over the last few years, it’s really come apart for him. He’s been repeatedly injured, his hitting’s been way off his peak when he was contributing, and you don’t really know what you’re getting. If he’s healthy and the injuries haven’t robbed him of his ability, maybe you luck out and get a left-handed bat in the lineup hitting .260/.375/.470 (hot cha cha) and some of his defense comes back so he’s not a huge liability in the field. Then he’s like super-Broussard without the music, except with Jones gone, he’ll be playing all the time.
The problem is that doesn’t seem real likely. From fangraphs, here’s the three projections we have already:
Bill James: .240/.345/.451
CHONE: .240/.340/.431
Marcel: .240/.329/.427
Those aren’t Safeco Field projections, btw.
The average AL right fielder last year hit .286/.348/.465. If Wilkerson’s healthy next year and can hit well and play some defense, that’s a cheap, effective plug for the hole they just created.
But to uphold the USSM virtues of pessimism, pessimism, and pessimism, I wonder what the chances of that are. Given his recent history, it seems a lot more likely that he’s going to miss at least a decent chunk of time and be maybe a little better in right than Guillen. Ichiro’s going to need a defensive sub to rest his legs is what. And it’s a lot to expect him to hit, post-injuries, as well as he did as a peaking, healthy 25-27-year-old.
The good news is he’s a lefty, so hopefully Safeco doesn’t take much from him at all. Here’s hoping. I’d love to see Wilkerson have a career resurrection in Seattle.
I wonder if the M’s were so encouraged by Vidro that they decided to take on another guy who’d suffered a lot of leg injuries to see if they can do it again.
“broken x-ray” picture from [177]’s flickr stream, used under the Creative Commons license
Wilkerson signed to the M’s
Updates as they happen. Certainly would indicate Jones is gone. Whee.
An Extension for Bedard?
As part of the never-ending rumor mill surrounding Bedard and the trade, there are now reports that Baltimore is considering offering him a long term contract, and will only go ahead with the trade if he turns it down. The Baltimore Sun threw out 7 years and $100 million as a possible figure. Since many people assume that the M’s would want to work out a contract extension with Bedard after acquiring him, I figured we should answer the question of what Bedard’s worth in terms of a long term deal.
Figuring out what a players worth is simply combining several calculations – how many wins will that player add to the roster and how much are those wins worth? Due to a lot of hard work by guys like Tango and others, these questions are actually pretty easy to answer.
If we assume Bedard stays healthy, then for 2008, he’s worth about 5 wins above what you could expect to get out of the Baek/Morrow/Ramirez/Rowland-Smith crop of pitchers – in other words, he’s a +5 win player when compared to replacement level. That’s his 2008 marginal win value.
How much is a marginal win actually worth in 2008? Approximately $2.5 million. Major League Teams are going to spend about $2.7 billion on their payrolls next year, when they would only spend about $360 million if everyone paid the league minimum to every player. So, they’re spending that extra $2.34 billion to try to win more games than their opponents. Since we know that a team full of replacement level, minimum salary guys could win about 50 games, the amount of wins a team buys beyond that 50 win mark are the marginal wins. So, there are approximately 930 wins in MLB to be bought, and teams will spend $2.34 billion to try to buy as many of those 930 wins as they can. $2.34 billion divided by 930 = $2.5 million. This has been the dollar value of a win for several years now – it hasn’t changed all that much.
So, if Bedard’s a 5 win pitcher, and a win is worth $2.5 million, then basic math tells us that Bedard is worth something like $12.5 million in 2008. That’s his actual value to the team in dollars.
However, market value doesn’t care so much about actual value, because MLB’s system is setup to steal money from young players and give it to older players. Since teams have these low cost young talents making far below their actual value, the extra cash savings from those players goes to the guys who are eligible to have their contracts decided either through arbitration or free agency. Since teams have money to fight over a limited pool of players, inflation kicks in, and the market value for a win is more like $4 million. That is, teams will pay $4 million for a win in free agency to fill out their rosters, hoping that the sum of their 25 man roster works out to something less than $2.5 million per win.
So, if we say that market value is $4 million per win, and Bedard’s still a 5 win player, that makes his market value for 2008 $20 million. You can see why the M’s want him so badly – a $12.5 million player (with a market value of $20 milllion) who could only ask for $8 million in arbitration is quite the bargain.
Now, because Bedard doesn’t have free market leverage yet, no team is going to want to get anywhere close to that $20 million per year figure by locking him up now. And Bedard, knowing that he’s only 12 months away from being able to demand something close to market value, isn’t going to want to give up his big payday for something close to his actual value.
So, in reality, an extension for Bedard will have to come in north of $12.5 million per year (to encourage Bedard to sign) and less than $20 million per year (to encourage the team to sign). If Bedard was only one year away from free agency, he could probably get closer to his $20 million figure, but since he’s two years away, the line will be closer to the $12.5 million mark.
In reality, I’d expect that neither the Mariners nor the Orioles will be willing to go past $14 million per year on an extension and for no longer than five years. That would put the deal at 5/70, far short of the 7/100 that has been tossed out as a starting point. After all, if Bedard will only command (estimates of) $7 million this year and $15 million next year, then both teams would have him under control for 2 years and $22 million, then by offering him 5/70, they’re really buying out his first three years of free agency for $48 million, or $16 million per year.
This is the decision Bedard will have to make – does he believe that the extra $4 million (or so) per year he’ll be able to command next winter after a successful, healthy season is worth the risk of having him blow out his arm and potentially lose out on a big payday. If he can get 5/70 now, or he can wait 12 months and try to get 5/100 then, is the shot at another $30 million worth the risk?
If I’m Bedard’s agent, I tell him its not – this is a guy with a long history of arm problems coming off the year of his life. The nature of pitching is so fragile that his $70 million could turn into $30 million very quickly, even if he stays healthy – just ask Dontrelle Willis or Josh Beckett.
So, if 5/70 (or something close to it) is the magic number at which Bedard should be signing a long term deal, is that a deal the M’s should be interested in?
Its a big risk, but I’d lean towards yes. I wouldn’t do much beyond 5/70, but at that point, I’d swallow hard and hope his elbow stays glued together.
Am I supposed to reset the counter or what?
If the team makes a bad move and it stalls, does that count for purposes of the “Days without a bad move” counter? It’s not a “bad move completed” counter, after all… but then, we haven’t been starting over for every Tony Clark rumor… shoot.
It’s horrible that after weeks of resignation that Jones would be traded, the deal’s finally consummated and then we get this limbo. Won’t someone think of the fans, and their blood pressure?
Photo from Marshall Astor’s flickr stream. Used under the Creative Commons license.
Bam! Santana trade!
From ESPN, the Mets got him. Deal’s held up as they see how many dump trucks of money they’ll need to drive up to Santana’s house. The cost:
If New York can work out a contract agreement with Minnesota, the Mets will send outfielder Carlos Gomez and pitchers Phil Humber, Deolis Guerra and Kevin Mulvey to the Twins.
Presumably, they mean “with Santana” there.
Wow. I didn’t see that coming. What’s that mean to the Bedard market?
Dave adds: This package of talent isn’t even close to what the M’s are giving up for Bedard. Gomez is a nice prospect, but he’s nothing close to Adam Jones. He projects as a solid CF down the line, but he’s not an elite young player. Guerra is the Mets version of Chris Tillman – good arm, not close to the majors, work to do. Humber and Mulvey are both moderate upside guys who might make decent back-end starters someday.
The M’s equivalent of this deal would be something like Jeff Clement, Chris Tillman, Wladimir Balentien, and Matt Tuiasasopo (they don’t have pitchers that are good comps for Humber/Mulvey, as they go for more high upside/risk arms).
The Yankees and Red Sox didn’t budge on their stance to not include their studly young major league players. The Mets didn’t even give up their best prospect! Next time someone tells you the M’s are paying market price for Bedard, you can send a swam of bees after them.
Photo from .A.A.’s photo stream at Flickr, used under the Creative Commons license
Today’s Bedard thread
Remember when Angelos nixed the Sele deal and the M’s got a pitcher for two years for what, $1? Good times.
It sucks that Jones, in answering a reasonable question, ended up getting what must have been a severe ass-chewing and is now reduced to saying what the team wants to. This whole situation is ridiculous.