Diving Into The Offseason: A Berrios Extension?

I haven't done so much as bust out a single cocktail napkin to do the math. Just spitballin'.

 

I will say that if you think you have figured out how to tell which pitchers' regimens are going to prevent major injury, you are wasting your time posting on an internet site.

As I said in an earlier post, Berrios appears more likely than the average pitcher to stay healthy or recover from injury, which is why I support the numbers Seth posted. Your opinion seems to be to never sign a long-term contract with a pitcher when they are several years from free agency. I’m sure that many people agree with you, and I won’t say you’re “wrong,” but teams do accept the gamble and sign these contracts with pitchers, although usually not this early. The advantage of doing it now is to get a better price. If the Twins could sign Berrios with Seth’s numbers, that would be a good deal.

I think what Ash is asking, as will I, is what specifically is forming your opinion that Berrios is less likely to get hurt?

As I said initially, he keeps himself in great shape, which I believe will help prevent injury and, if he gets injured, will help him recover and resume being a valuable pitcher.

 

At this point, I will add that I expect Falvey and Levine are changing the team’s medical and physical therapy practices, to hopefully improve health outcomes.

Edited October 25, 2017 by Deduno Abides

UCL is a tendon.

The labrum is fibro-cartilage.

 

I'm not sure there's much to be done about either from a being in shape standpoint. The point is that you cannot successfully predict injury to pitchers (at least as of today).

 

That said, I'd still lock him up.

Fitness and training play a large role in preventing and recovering from these injuries. The best chiropractors and physical therapists spend much of their days dealing with labral and tendon issues and muscle weaknesses that can lead to them. That is exactly what training is about. It is not about getting big guns. Edited October 25, 2017 by Deduno Abides

I've been cogitating on this a couple of days now, and finally decided to try to sort out my thoughts with some data.

 

Berrios just completed his age-23 season. That's a little arbitrary, depending on which part of the year one's birthday falls, but allows me to at least try to define a quick-and-dirty study to avoid cherry picking as much as possible. He started 25 games, pitched 145 innings, and got an above-average ERA+. That's the mark of a pretty good pitcher.

 

Let's turn the clock back 10 years, and find the guys in their age-23 season who pitched at least 100 innings and had an ERA+ better than 90 in the 2007 season. I'm doing this by hand, so I hope I didn't miss someone:

 

Carlos Villanueva - 59 G, 6 GS, 114 IP, ERA+ 113

Brandon McCarthy - 23 G, 22 GS, 101 IP, ERA+ 94

Tim Lincecum - 24G, 24 GS, 146 IP, ERA+ 112

Scott Kazmir - 34 G, 34 GS, 206 IP, ERA+ 130

Cole Hamels - 28 G, 28 GS, 183 IP, ERA+ 135

Zack Greinke - 52 G, 14 GS, 122 IP, ERA+ 124

 

HOLY MOLEY! That's some tasty pitching to lock up long-term, if you are smart enough to predict the future.

 

I want to eliminate Villanueva from consideration, as his pitching line isn't that similar to Berrios's that year, and he never went on to become a full-time starter. But, if I do that, I miss out on Greinke. I don't think I wanna do that.

 

I want to eliminate McCarthy, as having had a season not up to Berrios's standard set this year. Still, McCarthy has always been one of those guys people talk about trying to acquire, so I assume his reputation was pretty good back in 2007. Being in the majors at age 23 and being given a lot of innings means something. He's broken a lot of hearts since then with tantalizing but injury-riddled seasons, but I don't know how to predict that yet.

 

So I'm gonna say, let's stick with these 6 after all.

 

Lincecum and Kazmir did indeed get lucrative contracts, ones that I believe the signing teams came to regret. They delivered the bulk of their career WAR during their years of team-control.

 

Hamels and Greinke? Yes please.

 

So, suppose you're a GM and by some lucky chance you have these 6 pitchers on your roster at age 23. Ownership is willing to go deep for a few, but not all - and they won't give you a mulligan toward signing someone else to replace any dead money later on. How do you determine which, if any, to buy out of a few years of free agency, and which ones do you go only year to year, knowing only what is known in 2007? Pick the right two, and only those, and you're the next reincarnation of Branch Rickey. Sign too many, and you may be having ownership breathing down your neck. Sign the wrong two, and you're outta there. (Oh, and don't factor in what their actual teams did contract-wise later on, nor whether player and agent would have been open to an early deal. Just make the call at age 23, as to whether to open negotiations or not.)

 

I went to b-r.com and brought up the minor league page for each player, combined partial rows, and scrolled so I couldn't see past 2007. One guy went to college and the others were signed younger.

 

Villanueva - steadily increasing workload, no major downtime, reached majors at 22

McCarthy - steadily increasing workload, no major downtime, reached majors at 21

Lincecum - normal-looking college workload, brief minor league at 22, reached majors at 23

Kazmir - normal minor league workload at 18 through 20, reached majors at 20

Hamels - normal at 19, reduced workload 20-21 (injured?), reached majors at 22

Greinke - normal 18-19 workload, reached majors at 20, significant time missed at 22 and 23

 

I dunno. Based on this cursory review of their health, I think I'd reach some wrong conclusions.

 

Back to your assertion about work ethic and exercise regimens, I don't know how to be analytic about it. There's an anecdote about Lincecum swearing off of In-N-Out Burgers, just when things started to go sour for him. He was always known as kind of a flake, so maybe he's the anti-Berrios and does serve as a cautionary tale. But I don't know how outsiders like us can really know who has stellar habits - if you try to infer from their innings workload up to age 23, some of the "wrong" guys above have clean records like Berrios, and some of the "right" guys don't.

 

If I'm a GM, and my analytics team gives me this, I ask them to dig deeper for me. At minimum, repeat this exercise for several more seasons, then see if any refinements to the methodology suggest themselves and proceed with that. I'm certain that this has been done, anyway.

 

So, take this as merely some food for thought. I don't claim to know the last word here.

 

Instead, I'll close with probably the saddest photo I will see all day:

 

Good information.

 

Giants waited until Lincecum was in age 26 season, after two amazing years and one pretty good year. It was a lot more expensive, but they signed a 2-year deal and he pitched well, so it was a good deal. Then they signed an even more expensive 2-year deal, and he pitched OK, so it was almost a wash. Then they signed a slightly less expensive 2-year deal, and he pitched poorly. Going every two years, and waiting for Lincecum to prove himself, they spent almost $100M, which is a lot more than Seth proposed for a long-term deal for Berrios. Also, Lincecum was always considered more risky, with his size and unorthodox style.

 

Kazmir signed a three year deal for $28.5 before age 25, after being great at 21-23 and somewhat disappointing at 24. He was Ok at 25 and the wheels fell off at 26 and 27. He’s been somewhat of a mystery and I’ll admit to never quite understanding how and why pitchers succeed or fail for the Rays. It seems that he pitched through a bunch of minor injuries until he had bigger injuries and wasn’t any good anymore. He obviously was still a good pitcher, because he had a good comeback after resting. Better choices and communication earlier might have saved several years of his career.

 

Brandon McCarthy got his fame by being included in a trade for John Danks. He had had a good minors career, but his age 23 stats were terrible, despite the numbers you cite. 101.2 IP, 5.22 K/9, 4.25 BB/9. His first year with more than 1.1 fWAR and less than 4 ERA, FIP or xFIP was at age 28, when he put it together for the Athletics.

 

Villanueva was 0.4 fWAR long reliever at age 23.

 

Signing a young pitcher is a bet. Hopefully, more is known and done now to prevent injuries, beyond counting pitches.