ashbury

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, nor that they would have differing amounts of major league service time. 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, missed time* at 22, reliever at 23 * For non-physical reasons not relevant to this discussion 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:

Earl Weaver might have gotten too much credit for those 1970s Orioles, but he seemed good at finding what was right with players instead of what was wrong. One of his best achievements was crafting a decent "outfielder" out of John Lowenstein and Gary Roenicke. You can't platoon very much in this day and age, but if the downside of a contract is still having the dominant (lefty-hitting) half of a platoon with very good defense, that's a pretty limited downside, because finding a good RH bat for the OF isn't that expensive. If you wait until that, you will be paying much, much more.

Drawing a blank - can you be more specific?

Being more than a little expert in the art of passive-aggressive behavior, I happened to enjoy Puig's anti-flip upon repeated views.

Oh, sure, you expect us to believe that?

Ah, 3.84 instead of 3.89. I stand corrected. Brag away, Jose.

Priority #1 for me is to get the maximum out of Berrios and his vaunted potential. A 3.89 ERA this season is nothing to brag about yet, with that defense behind him. He led the league in HBP - maybe someone with an emphasis on command will help with that as well. Sure, he's young, but next year needs to be when Berrios really emerges.

A quality arm will address the quantity concern I have with only the seven arms listed.

Neither senator ran as a moderate. Libruls are only canonizing Flake now as a matter of convenience, with a common foe. McCain goes wackadoodle every now and then.

Not the guy you were responding to. That was my only point there.

First of all, I'm in complete agreement that JDL wasn't enough in return for Dozier, and with his injury history might not even have been a desirable piece in a package deal. Looks like a matter of semantics here. It's the nature of the 5th starter to be given chances that may or may not look legitimate. There's some value to a team in having arms for the innings that need to be pitched. There's also perceived value in trying to get a guy the experience to achieve some part of his high ceiling. If we're in agreement that certain prospects are highly likely to rack up major league innings, and your quibble is that they won't be quite the right kind of innings, then I think we can live with the remaining difference of opinion.

This is undoubtedly true, but it also seems to deny being able to distinguish the level of accomplishment by a certain age, which affects trade value and so forth. I doubt if you really think the floor is the same for guys like Kohl Stewart versus Aaron Slegers versus Buddy Boshers (all of whom I consider minor leaguers at this time). Maybe you have a different term than floor for the opposite of their respective ceilings, which I am thinking of as "how would he do if you threw him in against major league hitters right now?". (Buddy knows how to get certain guys out, Aaron would have a few OK games and a lot of stinkers, Kohl would get that deer-in-the-headlights look after about 5 batters.) Injury is the main reason for sure-things to become busts, but (as KirbyDome89 already pointed out) the same is true for established major leaguers - we thought we knew Phil Hughes's floor for the duration of his contract extension, until suddenly we didn't. It's true that 98% of prospect pitchers have a floor of "bust". You gave yourself an out when you said "virtually". But for the trade discussion we're having here, we surely are focusing on that top 2%. It's just not a useful observation, IMO.

I was waiting for a call from Mrs Ash to pick her up from the airport, so had to leave after Kenley gave up the dinger. Had no idea what I was missing!

Unless the guy was traded mid-season, for example.

Quick game. Guess it didn't last long enough to attract a game thread crowd.

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.

BTW, Mrs Ash is at Minute Maid Park tonight, watching the game with the local faithful. I should have had the foresight to accompany her to Houston. It's gotta be a fun scene.

I may have misheard, but at the end of maybe the fourth inning, I thought Jack Buck closed by saying, "we have a pitchers' duel, and it's a good one". I suppose there have been bad pitchers' duels, but it still sounded dumb.

Man, a good two-strike curveball is a thing of beauty.

You're right, I didn't address it directly, but I guess implicitly don't see it as as big a differentiator as you do. IMO the elbow, shoulder, and labrum are equal-opportunity tormentors.

MLBPA negotiated this aspect of travel and will not allow exceptions.

Except, the opportunity cost of tying up the money this way is high, if he does become that 5.0 WAR pitcher but then gets injured before the FA years would have kicked in. It's money that couldn't be spent, say, acquiring an additional high-end starter. I'm not saying the risk is intolerable. Just that your form of analysis strikes me as very incomplete.

My snap reaction is that $46M/7 is a deal both sides say no to. From the Twins side, it is taking on a lot of risk for not a lot of upside during the FA years that are bought out. From the player's side, the ceiling for earnings during this long window is just too high to sell out at such price. If both sides find fault with the deal, it may mean it's somewhere close to economically "fair", but that doesn't mean an agreement can be struck.

Matches up pretty well with the TD writers voting. Glad to know of Kyle Gibson's award for community service. Does anyone here know what sorts of service he's doing that prompts this recognition? / edit - never mind - the Twins write this up periodically: http://mlb.mlb.com/min/downloads/y2017/Community_Report.pdf - for Gibby it's a fishing tournament benefit, a fantasy football benefit, and Meals on Wheels. No doubt there are anonymous activities as well (as is the case for many players).