Daily Archives: December 6, 2011

Winter Meetings Day Two Rumors: White, MacDougal, and a Bat

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Though all of our moaning about Aaron Harang and the rest of Ned Colletti’s inexplicable moves has been, uh, “fun”, I guess, there’s still a few more days of the winter meetings, and that means rumors.

Danny Knobler:

Dodgers’ Logan White interviewing for Astros GM job, sources say

No surprise here, especially since White interviewed for the same job back in 2007. The Astros are in a bizarre situation thanks to the late ownership change – I can’t remember a team ever having gone to the winter meetings without a general manager – and now that they’ve been spurned by Andrew Friedman, they’re casting their net far and wide. White deserves an interview and probably a shot somewhere, though we’ve been through this before so I’ll wait until we hear he’s getting a second interview.

Dylan Hernandez:

#Dodgers meeting with Mike MacDougal‘s agent tonight.

Well, of course they are. I’m sure we’d all like to be appalled by this, but, come on. We all knew there would be interest in bringing him back, so let’s relax. Until, you know, MacDougal gets a backloaded two-year deal as well.

Hernandez:

#Dodgers have talked to 4-5 teams about potential trades. Looking for a bat.

That’s potentially juicy, no? But where do you deal from? The two names that come up most often when thinking of trades tend to be Andre Ethier and James Loney, yet neither make sense here. You don’t deal Ethier if you’re looking for offense, and Loney would have just about no trade value. If you’re going to trade from depth… well, it’s hard to ignore that in the last week Colletti not only locked up a full five-man starting rotation for 2012, but for 2013 as well. (Which is even dumber than it already seemed when you look at some of the starters who could be available next winter, like Zack Greinke, Matt Cain, John Danks, Cole Hamels, Dan Haren, James Shields, Shaun Marcum, Anibal Sanchez, and more.) Since the Dodgers are deepest in young, righty starting pitching, and they’ve now blocked much of them for the next two years, it’s not hard to see a scenario where pitching prospects get moved for a bat. Nathan Eovaldi, Allen Webster, Chris Withrow, Garrett Gould, etc. – you’re on notice. (Before we panic, no one’s trading for an injured Rubby De La Rosa, and Zach Lee would be untouchable in all but the hugest deals.)

As for who that bat could be… well, it’d all but certainly have to be an outfielder. The recent signings of Mark Ellis, Jerry Hairston, and Adam Kennedy to go with Juan Uribe have filled up the infield – not that there’s really any second or third basemen worth trading for anyway – and there’s little question Loney will be returning. So it’d have to be an outfielder, one who could push Juan Rivera to the bench and Jerry Sands to the minors. The most popular name I heard on Twitter in response to this was Carlos Quentin, since the White Sox are clearly rebuilding based on their Sergio Santos trade today, which makes sense only if the Sox help with some of the ~$7m or so he’ll get in his final year of arbitration this year.

Who else? All suggestions welcome, though try to keep it realistic. (No, they’re not trading for Hanley Ramirez or Joey Votto.)

Winter Meetings Day Two: Aaron Harang Heads North

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When we left off last night, the Aaron Harang signing wasn’t yet official, since it appeared Harang might be holding out for three years. This morning, Jon Heyman confirms that it’s done for two years and about $12m (though no details are out yet, you can bet that’s heavily backloaded). As you can imagine, I’m not thrilled, though I feel basically the opposite about this as I did with Jerry Hairston: Hairston is a usable piece who might not have been the best fit for the hole on this roster, while Harang fills a very real need – a veteran starter – yet might not be the best person to do so.

Harang, as you might know, was a very solid starter for Cincinnati between 2005-07, before his career fell apart with the Reds between 2008-10. That led him to the place where every troubled pitcher goes to resuscitate their career, San Diego, where the Padres gave him one year at $3m. I want to stop right here if I can, though, because I keep reading that Harang’s 2011 was a “comeback” or a “bounceback” or a “rebound”, and that’s simply not true.

Let’s look at Harang’s last three seasons in Cincinnati, where his career went south, and then his lone year in San Diego, shall we?

As you can see, he’s been largely the same pitcher over the last four years, if anything trending downward, since he’s walking more and striking out less. Not that a FIP in the 4s isn’t usable from a back-of-the-rotation guy, of course, but where is all of the business about his big comeback coming from? Oh, right: stats that don’t matter. Let’s take another look at that chart…

And there it is. Harang was only slightly better in 2011 than he was in 2010 (if even at all, since the K/BB stats are identical), but the change in ballpark environment (not to mention the improvement in the defense behind him, since the Padres were one of the better fielding teams in baseball last year) had a huge impact on his unadjusted and meaningless ERA and W/L totals.

Don’t believe me? In 17 starts at Petco last year, Harang allowed opponents to put up a line of just .240/.304/.380, largely due to a BABIP that was a below-average .252. On the road, that line shot up to .317/.374/.504, with the resulting OPS of .878 meaning that the average batter he saw away from San Diego produced like Robinson Cano, Josh Hamilton, Alex Gordon, or Jose Reyes, all of whom put up seasons like that this year.

The Padres recognized this and declined to exercise their portion of a 1/$5m mutual option (which I’ll grant, Harang wasn’t going to accept anyway). The Dodgers apparently didn’t, and where the team that should know Harang best wouldn’t even pay 1/$5m, the Dodgers saw fit to go with 2/$12m – twice the years, and more than twice the money. Where’s your Alex Tamin now?

Worse, the contract just doesn’t make sense in the marketplace. Just take a look at Freddy Garcia, who put up very similar stats to Harang last year (FIP of 4.12 vs 4.17, K/BB of 2.13 vs 2.14) while pitching in the tough AL East; Garcia returned to the Yankees last month for one year and $5m. Or even look closer to home at the 2/$10m Chris Capuano got from the Dodgers last week. Capuano’s 2011 was arguably superior (FIP of 4.04 vs 4.17, K/BB of 3.17 vs 2.14) plus he’s a lefty who’s a few months younger than Harang, yet Harang walks away with more money. Why? There’s no other answer here than “once again, wins and ERA garnered far too much attention.”

Now, I don’t want to sound like there’s no utility to this deal at all. I didn’t want Nathan Eovaldi to start the year in the rotation, so I acknowledge the need for another starter, and it’s not like Dodger Stadium is some hitter’s paradise. Harang, if healthy (a big if, since he’s spent at least a month on the DL in each of the last four seasons) can provide some use as a starter who can put up a FIP in the mid-4′s, which doesn’t sound like much but can be harder to find than you’d think. It’s just hard to see how this helps the team win, since now that Hiroki Kuroda is gone, you have Clayton Kershaw followed by the always uncertain Chad Billingsley, Ted Lilly, and two guys like Ted Lilly. Sure, it’s nice to say that these guys will be fine in the NL West because they still get to pitch in San Diego and San Francisco, but you’ve now picked up three of the most homer-prone pitchers in baseball – and Kershaw alone can’t pitch every game in Colorado and Arizona.

For all the money Colletti has spent on 30+ veterans this winter, I’m not sure the team is even one game better for it. But if not better, they’re at least older and more expensive. So that’s something, right?