Looks like the Johan Santana sweepstakes are coming to a head; ESPN reports that if the Sox offer either Clay Buchholz — he of the no-hit stuff — or Jacoby Ellsbury in their package, Santana is ours.
I’m loathe to give up Ellsbury, because I think he’ll be our Ichiro. He just changes the whole team’s approach. Best case scenario, Buchholz becomes someone like … Johan Santana, who’s as known a quantity as it comes. So if money is not a problem, I don’t see why you’d want to hold back Buchholz.
And then next year’s rotation: Beckett, Santana, Schilling, Dice-K, Wakefield. Frightening.
Please share widely!
I think Lester will be in the starting five next year. Maybe one of the our (beloved) old fogies (Schill or Wake) moves to middle relief or picks up extra starts when we need them.
already on the table for Santana. According to ESPN, IF either Buckholtz or Ellsbury is added, then it moves forward. Santana would still need to come to terms with the Sox, but Lester is already in the deal.
Now Buster Olney is reporting that a deal that includes Ellsbury is on the table, but that Lester was pulled out.
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p>If the Sox can swing a deal and keep Lester and Buckholz (which I’d find hard to believe), while giving up Ellsbury and other minor league prospects, they’ll do it in a heartbeat.
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Isn’t exactly the guy I rely on for info. LOL.
of baseball, read ESPN, Gammons, Olney etc. But I’m always up for reliable sources for sports info.
Who is it that you rely on for info?
lol.
I don’t care for him anyway, but more importantly, he’s 41, and he’s only pitched 200+ innings twice in the past five years. So, don’t count on Schilling for about half of next year’s rotation.
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p>As for Wake [who I do like], he too has only gone 200+ innings twice in the past 5 years, and his ERA is trending toward 5.00. For a five man, not so bad, but you don’t need to pay four million for that kind of productivity.
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p>Between the two of ’em, a 6th man will be in the rotation for about 15 games started I suspect.
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p>Ellsbury? No problem — take him. Outfielders are a dime a dozen.
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p>Just rambling here. Santana’s a great get, but don’t forget that last year was his worst year since becoming a full time Major Leaguer… worst ERA, worst winning percentage, most HRs allowed. It wasn’t a bad year at all, but the trend is concerning.
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p>Finally, because of Santana’s no-trade clause, he’ll be in the drivers’ seat for negotiations. ESPN wrote that
$25 million a year? That’s a lot of scratch.
of Wake & Schill, and between them they could make 35 starts. That’s assuming Becket, DiceK, Santana and Buckholz.
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p>Much as I like Ellsbury, I would part with him and Lester if it means Santana in the rotation.
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p>I’ve read that the Sox shut Buckholz down at the end of last year because of injury concerns, so I’ll be curious to see how this unfolds.
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p>I also think that as good as Santana is, I wouldn’t pay $25 mill a year for him. They won this year without him. Beckett will be getting maybe $10 million per year I believe (under his extension), but he will have another bite at the apple in a couple of years.
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p>If DiceK can improve in his second season in the American league (as Beckett did), the Sox will be OK even without Santana.
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p>Funny thought on Schill. Remember after 2004 when he was the bloody sock WS hero, and he felt compelled to ride in Air Force One with GW Bush right before the election, and proclaim his support? I haven’t heard much from Schill on politics lately. Some enterprising reporter (Shaughnessey?)should get him on record and ask him who he’s endorsing.
Id prefer to keep Ellsbury and Buchholz then take a gamble on Santana who thanks to the bidding war with the Yankees is becoming too expensive. Personally I liked the Crisp and Lester for Santana deal as much as I like Lester.
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p>Ellsbury and Buchholz could be with the team for another decade, Santana has yet to peak but maybe has 2-3 good years left. Basically do we mortgage the future for present gains? thats been the yankees strategy since 2000 and they’ve won zero championships. Id rather win with a more diverse and agile team than a team compiled of other teams superstars.
Plus, there’s the numbers. Every year the fans get thrilled because of a surfeit of talent at the pitching position, then 1 gets injured, and another proves to be a fraud for this season. Take Wakefield or Schilling out of the equation — because one of them will be of limited use at this stage of their career — and tell me: do you want one top 10% pitcher, or two top 20%?
He has endorsed John McCain and will be hosting a town hall meeting with the senator this week, i believe
I pay absolutely no attention that stat. The fact is that Santana continued to have Cy Young-level stuff this year, but his teammates didn’t help him out as much.
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p>The Baseball Prospectus-type geniuses look at strikeout/walk ratio as the predictive stat for pitchers. Santana’s K/BB ratio was similar to the rest of his career as a starter, and his batting average against was .225, compared to his career average of .221. He was awesome. His team wasn’t.
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p>Yeah, $25 million is a lot, but he’s as consistent as it gets, and he’ll be 29 next year. The questions are 1. Do the Sox have the money, and 2. Could they spend it more effectively on a couple of other players. I imagine the answer to 1. is yes; and there’s no other pitcher anything like Santana. In fact, there may have been no other trade opportunity like this since Pedro Martinez.
an AL pitcher can’t win a game singlehandedly, but he sure can lose one. Some pitchers have a knack for doing just enough to win, others just enough to lose — especially if they give it up in bursts [note: Santana’s HR numbers went way up this year].
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p>Higher ERA than in the past, higher HR numbers, and a worse W/L… sabermatricians would agree that they’re correlated. It’s true, the quality of your relief has a big effect on ERA as well as W/L. But, giving up taters helps you lose ball games, as does raising your ERA.
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p>K/BB is overrated — far more important is WHIP [walks + hits per innings pitched]. I’d rather have a ground ball pitcher than a strikeout pitcher anyway — you get double plays and tend to have a better chance of making it to the 8th inning with your starter. His WHIP [1.07] was incredibly good, but higher than that of 04, 05, and 06.
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p>Was 2006 a slightly off year, or is it a sign that he’s going to get worse? That’s the 25 million dollar question. As for other pitchers out there — there’s always pitching out there if you’re willing to fork out the money. Not much, but always something.
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p>I favor pitching to hitting being an NL guy, and I’d be willing to take a chance on Santana by giving up position players with promise. The huge salary load is a problem — and while locking up a guy for 6 years is great if it plays out well, at $25/per, he could tear something in April and you’re out 150 big ones, since MLB contracts are guaranteed. The league is littered with 33 year old washouts who were great at 28.
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p>I’d be apprehensive about giving up young [cheap!] pitching though, and I’d be really apprehensive about a six year contract.
I’ll grant you that his HR rate was up. (Remember that Beckett’s was up last year, too.) And actually, his K/BB ratio was down, but still awesome. Other than that he’s the same pitcher. It looks like statistical noise to me, but what do I know? That’s where scouting comes in … and where I gladly go out.
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p>How many washouts at age 33 have there been who were as good as Santana at age 28? Remember, fragile Pedro was 35 this year.
Sandy Koufax. Submit others.
won the Cy Young in 1988 at 28 years old. His 1994 numbers: 4.65 ERA on 31 innings pitched, never got more than 50 innings a year after. Admittedly his numbers weren’t as good as Santana, but his were improving at the time, not getting [what I believe to be statistically significant, albeit slightly] worse.
Won the Cy Young in 2002 at 24 years old. Five years later: 4.53 ERA, 11-13 record. It’s true that he didn’t have as many years of great pitching as Santana, but he was another one who was getting better, and five years later isn’t worth the $10 million he was paid.
Won the Cy Young in 1996. Five years later? 62 innings pitched. The next year? 22 IP. The next year? 160 IP, a losing record, and an ERA over 4. The next year? 6.95 ERA. While his 1995 year wasn’t strong, he had a number of really solid years prior to that.
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p>Again, not as steady-high quality as Santana, but a total burn out six years later.
This is a good parallel to Santana.
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p>Won the Cy in 1994. Between 87 and 94 his highest ERA was 3.52, and often sub-3. Sure, NL and less hitting time period, but still phenom.
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p>Six years later: 6.91 ERA for the Yanks, then 4.31 for the BSox, then 6.50 for the Metties, then retirement.
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p>It’s true that five years after the Cy he was still strong, but it doesn’t undermine my point that six years after a great season it’s tough to still be great, and Santana won in 04 and 06… maybe his “six year window” is coming sooner…
then the Sox should sign Santana.
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p>Cone won 20 games in the NL at age 25 (1988)
and he won 20 games 10 years in the AL later at age 35 (1998)
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p>In between, Cone won the Cy Young at age 31 in the AL.
six years after his Cy, his ERA was 6.91 and he only started 11 games two years after his Cy. $25 million for 11 games would have come out to $116,000 per out that year.
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p>The problem is that it’s hard to find guys who (a) have the same stat trend as Santana, at (b) the same age. Just not a very large sample size. Coney’s streak of good seasons really started in 1994. By the time anybody looked up and said: wow, this guy is consistently great… he started to fall apart. But, in fairness, he was older than Santana is now.
trying to point out in those stats is that (using your 6 year metric) Cone finished 3rd in the Cy Young voting in 1988, and 6 years later, he won the Cy Young.
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p>That said, I don’t believe that the Sox will pay $25 mill per year for Santana, IMHO it’s just a negotiating tactic. Sanatana has a bit of the A-Rod problem, in that there are only a couple of teams that can even approach his number.
in the five years after he finished 3rd in the Cy Young race, his sole accolade was one all star appearance. Nobody would have called him a dominant pitcher over the course of his career before 1993. Relative to the performance of the league, Cone’s best six years were 1994-1999, and the wheels fell off quite soon afterward. In fairness, he was about 10 years older than Santana at that point.
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p>The six year metric is to find a string of six years where the pitcher was consistently excellent… not find one year of excellence where the very next year his ERA was above the league average.
Ninth in Cy in 1991, second in Cy voting in 1992, won the Cy in 1993. Not as strong as Santana, but still dang good.
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p>Three years later his ERA was over 5.00, and never got below again.
… but I’d respectfully suggest that none of these guys had a streak of dominance like Santana for five years from 2003-2007.
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p>It’s easy to find guys who were great for a year or two at age 27 or 28. That’s the statistical peak of most players’ careers.
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p>Anyway, here’s BaseballReference.com’s list of similar players:
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p>Similar Pitchers through Age 28
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p>Compare Stats
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p> 1. Tim Hudson (949)
2. Roy Oswalt (940)
3. John Candelaria (935)
4. Juan Pizarro (931)
5. Bob Welch (929)
6. Mike Mussina (928)
7. Kevin Appier (927)
8. Jack McDowell (921)
9. Kevin Millwood (915)
10. Sid Fernandez (915)
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p>But compare all of these guys — or the guys you mentioned — to the league ERA for their years. I feel comfortable saying that through age 28, Santana has been better than all of these guys, with the possible exception of Oswalt.
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p>The question is health, and whether you can assume that someone will stay strong for 5 years. If you’re saying “no”, then I guess I agree with that. But one also has to acknowledge Santana’s consistent brilliance over the last 5 years.
nobody is near Santana, at least not recently. But, I wouldn’t use the “similar players” tool in this case — it doesn’t find players who were similar at a particular point in their career, so it’s of less value.
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p>Here’s one:
Doc Gooden.
Going into 1991, he was 26 or 27 years old. He had been 2nd, 1st, 7th, 5th, and 4th in Cy voting in the seven years prior, with a single injury-shortened season. He was blowing the league away, was still young, and had a K/BB ratio of 2.5 — 4.0 in each of the years. At that time in his career, a comparison to Santana seems quite fair. By 1994 he was alternating between an ERA over 4.00 and injury shortened seasons.
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p>I think the David Cone comparison is pretty good, but in terms of accolades and numbers, Gooden is even better.
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p>And here’s another one:
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p>Fernando Valenzeula
1981-1986: six time all star, finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th in the Cy Young voting, throwing 190+ IP that first year, and then always 250+. He turned 28 in 1988. 1990 was his last good year [1996 was a one year resurgence].
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p>I think that Gooden and Valenzeula were both as good after 6ish years as Santana — both had at finished with the Cy once and came in 2nd once, and had strong years every other year in those first six or so. Neither was a flash in the pan; both had consistently great years since their rookie campaigns.
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p>But, the wheels came off in both cases. Not necessarily dramatically, and there was some productivity during the next six. But, they certainly didn’t earn top salary in the league at the time with those performances.
and the pitch counts implied. Valenzuela threw over 250 innings five times before age 26. Yikes! Gooden threw 218, 276 and 250 before age 22. The next year (’87) he broke down — and still threw 179. Go figure.
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p>In keeping with today’s conventional wisdom, Santana’s been more conservatively used — never over 233 IP, and not over 200IP before age 25. Different situation.
and I agree they threw more. But come on Charlie, there’s certainly plenty of evidence of pitchers at 28 with great stuff — and even a history of great stuff — who have fallen apart by their 33rd birthday.
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p>Every situation is different; there is nobody who’s career perfectly matches Santana [age correlating with IP, ERA, awards, quality of team’s setup man, AL/NL, etc]. Still, Doc and Val are damn good matches. They threw more innings [which is good for Santana in the comparison], but it’s still a pretty solid comparison.
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p>So yeah, it’s a “different situation.” Every two players are in a different situation. I contend that there’s plenty to learn from Doc and Val — both not to overuse arms [young or otherwise], but also that five years of ace pitching by age 28 does not necessarily translate to another five years of even really good pitching.
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p>Then there’s the change in pressure — the Twins to the Sox. More media coverage, more fan interest, and 18/19 games or more each year against the Yankees, not to mention being in a division with better hitting [814.75 vs 774.25, Sox and Twins removed], which should statistically blip his ERA up about 0.15 on it’s own.
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p>I’m not saying Santana will be a washout — on the contrary, I think he’s good for another 2 years as a 1 starter, 2 as a 2 starter, and then the last two are complete toss-ups. Is that worth $25 a year? It very well might be a bargain for the first 4 and a tough situation for the last two years. If you can afford the salary and the luxury cap hit, and afford the fact that if he doesn’t perform as expected, his downside is much much larger than his upside [how much better could he get?!], I don’t have a problem trading young talent, even pitching.
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p>Truth be told, even if Wake and Shill combine to only start 35 games this year, that’s quite a lineup. Still, the Sox better have not one but two more MLB-capable starters, because the odds are high that with Shill and Wake as old as they are that they’ll have two starters out at the same time, either both the old guys or one of ’em alongside a freak or short term injury in one of the other three.
The IP (actually pitch count) for pitchers below age 25 is a really, really big point of departure. Ask Bill James or the Baseball Prospectus geeks.
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p>Injuries do happen, of course; but put it this way: Was trading for Pedro Martinez for his age 27-32 years a good deal?
The challenge you’ve laid out:
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p>Find a pitcher who, at 28 years old, had about 5 years of really high quality pitching, and who’s performance dropped off substantially 4-6 years later. Also, keep the IP well below 250, and even lower pre-25 years old.
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p>The problem is that in the 1990s and earlier, pitching 250+ innings a year was standard. Heck, Koufax [your example] had three years of 300+ IP.
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p>So, if I go back far enough to find a pitcher who was as good at 28 as Santana and who pitched at least another 5 years, I go back into an era where 250+ IP was standard.
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p>Ergo, I certainly can’t find anybody. Either they weren’t as consistent for so long, weren’t as young as Santana after 5 great years, or are old enough that they certainly pitched 250+ IP regularly.
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p>Constraints that are so binding that no other player qualifies in comparison aren’t very useful — we learn nothing.
Your argument might be correct, but the lower innings pitched does appear to be critical to longevity.
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p>People who have looked into it point out that many pitchers who go on to long careers (prior to the understanding of limiting their work) often had injuries earlier in the career which did limit their innings pitched (I believe Clemens is a good example of this).
….you have Ruppert!
Big Schill is supporting McCain.
re stomv Sox pitching assessment- stick to politics!
I don’t have a problem trading Clay Bucholz to obtain Santana from the Minnesota Twins.
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p>But I would insist that Minnesota also take Superior Court Judge Kathe Tuttman and a Governor’s Councilor to be named later in exchange for Associate Supreme Court Judge and former Minnesota Viking defensive lineman Alan Page.
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p>Somehow, I am confident the former leader of the Purple People Eaters would be intimidated by a convicted murderer like Daniel Tavares and releasing such a cretin on personal recognizance.
Outfielders may be ‘a dime a dozen,’ but lead off hitters sure aren’t. Ellsbury would be the best we’ve had since Damon – and I think he’s going to be significantly better than Damon. He’s certainly shown that he can play at a high level in the MLB as a lead off hitter, including during the World Series. Do we really want to trade that for a 29 year old pitcher who wants over 20 mil a year for years to come? Maybe if it were a straight-up trade, but we’ll have to give up even more for the ‘privilege’ of that odious contract that will come back to bite us.
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p>The fact is that I’ve yet to see a player as fun to watch as Ellsbury for years. He just zooms out there. He’s a star in the making and will anchor our lead off spot for years to come, making our already good lineup downright scary for the rest of this decade and probably longer.
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p>If the Twins will take Buchholtz or Lester and a few decent prospects for Santana, I’d do the trade. I’d even think about it if it were Buchholtz and Lester. However, Ellsbury and others would be insanity, not worth it and would deny fans the ability to watch one of the most exciting, home-grown, every-day players to come around in a long time.
I am pretty impressed with Ellsbury so far, and anyone who calls him a dime-a-dozen outfielder must have been watching Materpiece Theater during September and October, because they sure weren’t watching baseball.
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p>That said, it is unlikely that he will prove to be just as good as he appears right now. By JUly, there will be a good book on him, and he will have to adjust. We don’t know how good he is at doing that yet. So his stock is as high as it ever will be right now.
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p>It is a dilemma. I am confident that the Red Sox front office is not using W/L as criteria for evaluating Santana. While it is true that the Red Sox won without Santana this year, it is also true that he was not in pinstripes this year. If he were, there would have been no huge lead with which to rest Okajima and Manny, so the Red Sox would have been weaker and the Yankees would have been stronger. The Yanks had the Red Sox’ number this year; it was a blessing that Cleveland did them in. I would not have wanted to face NY in the ALCS, even without Santana.
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p>I suspect that the inclusion of Ellsbury may just be to keep the price nice and high for the Yankees.
I pointed out that outfielders are a dime-a-dozen in general, and you point out my instinct — let’s see how he does after a year or three of playing every day. Odds are, not as well. We’ll see how his next few Octobers play out. Odds are, not as well as the one he just had.
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p>Face it: lots of baseball is pure random, and without a large enough sample size, it’s hard to know what Ellsbury will show. Santana has shown six years of amazing stuff… Ellsbury has shown closer to six weeks worth.
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p>Sure, everybody loves the home grown player, and there’s no question that speed is exciting, more-so than a great pitcher every 6 days. But, having a fast and aggressive leadoff hitter isn’t key to winning the World Series. Sure, it helps — but if instead the team has a guy who hits the gaps and plays solid defense but only steals 5 bases a year but hits 20 HRs, they haven’t taken a huge loss.
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p>Getting another number 1 pitcher not only results in more wins that day of the week, but pushes each pitcher after him on the rotation down a slot, which means they each face easier pitchers. You get not only the wins from Santana, but extra wins down the line — Shill, Dice-K, Wake, whomever.
I doubt he’s a .350 hitter, but if he’s .330 with a close-to .400 OBP, getting 30-40 steals a year and 10-15 home runs… he’s one of the top 2-3 lead off hitters in the game, including better than this year’s NL MVP. Add to that a potential Gold Glove winner over the course of his carreer, I’d say a player of that caliber is even more rare than Santana. There are a number of SPs in this league that I’d prefer over Santana (we already have one of them on our team). There aren’t a whole ton of lead off hitters I’d prefer.
Rollins: .344/.531/.875. 30 HRs, 20 3Bs, 38 2Bs. 41 SBs, 6 CS.
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p>No way a .330 hitter with .400 OBP and 10-15 HRs, 30-40 steals is better than Rollins. It’s clearly worse, and you must admit that .330/.400 is damn optimistic.
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p>It’s also not better than Suzuki [.396/.431/.827, 6 HRs, 37 SBs].
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p>It’s also not better than Reyes [.354/.421/.775, 12 HRs, 78 SBs].
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p>It’s also worse than H Ramirez [.386/.562/.948, 29 HRs, 51 SBs].
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p>It’s also not better than Byrnes [.353/.460/.813, 21 HRs, 50 SBs], who had 193 ABs leadoff this year [and a chunk at the 3 and 4 spots].
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p>The five guys I listed played a full season as well or better than what you think Ellsbury might show based on just over 100 ABs. Ellsbury’s got great potential, and he’s exciting. But, hitting .330 with 10 dongs and 35 SBs puts him at the bottom of the top five, and he’s never done it yet whereas these guys all have, just last year.
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p>Personally, I think that Ellsbury is destined for the NL, where small ball and speed are more appreciated and useful.
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p>[OBP/SLG/OPS] == on base percentage, slugging, on base + slugging. Batting average isn’t as important a metric as OBP for a leadoff hitter.
First off, in Red Sox terms (and in many of Rollins’s seasons, in MLB leadoff terms), Rollins OBP is teh suck, especially in a leadoff position. If he was playing for the Sox, he would have been in the 6-9 whole for his entire career.
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p>Maybe I’m giving the Sox brass too much credit, but you look up and down that lineup and almost everyone has a very high OBP. Ellsbury has shown us nothing that would cast his OBP or batting skills into doubt – so I don’t think a .330 avg/.400 OBP is “optimistic.” I think it sounds about right, give or take 10-15 pts. (You also have to remember that Ellsbury is going to get better before he’s going to get worse; he’s only 24).
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p>Whether Ellsbury continues at his 100-ab pace, .394, or falls back a few points won’t change the fact that he’s going to have one of the best OBPs among lead off hitters in the game. And, quite honestly, I don’t give a crap about Rollins 1 year of having 30 HRs when his OBP (you know, a leadoff hitter’s job) was .344 – his second best effort in his entire career.
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p>Ignoring his 30 HR season, which has never happened before and will never happen again (he’s only had one other season with more than 20), let’s look at some of his other good years. In ’06, his OBP was .334. In ’05, it was .338. In ’03, .320 and in ’02, .306. Sure, he got on base at an okay clip for a leadoff hitter this year, but I repeat: he would not have been our leadoff hitter even in this year, his MVP season (probably because he wouldn’t have lasted through a Boston media in a year he had a .306 OBP).
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p>To gain some pespective here, only two Sox players had OBPs lower than Rollins this season and neither of them made it as our leadoff hitter and one just so happened to lose his starting job in the middle of the playoffs.
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p>
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p>Something I actually agree with – which makes this whole, entire debate astounding. Rollins is not a good OBP guy, would never have been our leadoff hitter and in some of his seasons (which were viewed by as good in some circles) would have damn near made him a huge target for a good tar and feathering in the media.
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p>Finally, Ellsbury could be one of the leaders in Stolen Bases in the MLB. The reason why I gave a lower number for him on our team is because we traditionally don’t run as much as we could, though Francona has shown a willingness to run this season. A full season of Ellsbury leading off could very well result in well more steals than I’d dare to estimate.
Ellsbury’s OBP/Slug/OPS from 116 plate appearences in the regular season: .394 .509 .902
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p>Granted, it’s only 1/5 of a season, but it at least shows a lot of good potential. Hanley Ramirez will likely post better numbers if he can keep it up, but I’m sure you could find a lot of people who’d say Ramirez had the best season in the game. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Sox developed both players.
but before I get to that..
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p>Rollins wouldn’t be hitting 6-9 on any team on a regular basis. 2 or 3 hole maybe, but those 30 SBs make him a reasonable leadoff hitter, especially if a guy who hits singles and doesn’t steal bases is hitting second. No question getting on base another 6% of the time [.400 OBP] would be better, but the power Rollins shows is far more than Ellsbury.
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p>As for optimistic, dude, you’re definitely optimistic. Ellsbury played MLB for six weeks. Six weeks does not a trend make, especially in the second half where pitchers are more worn down. He might bat .330 consistently, but get real — tons of rookies turn in 100 great at bats and then sink back down to a very pedestrian .280 BA. 11 guys in MLB hit .330 or better in 2007; 18 had OBP north of .400 [and 78% had 25+ HRs… you’ve got to be pitched around to touch .400 OBP in general].
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p>Could Ellsbury post a .400 OBP next year with 500 ABs? Sure, he could. It’s not very likely though, because (a) pitchers will study how to pitch him, (b) they’ll be more rested and contending for pennants in the first 3/4 of the season, (c) he’ll get tired and/or bruised and banged up at some point in the season, (d) statistical deviation suggests he hit over his mean this past year, and (e) it’s almost impossible to have a .400 OBP without a handful of IBBs and a bunch more pitch arounds — something leadoff hitters don’t get very often. Could he get it? Sure. But, players have anomaly seasons all the time — it’s likely Ellsbury had an anomaly six weeks, and that he’ll settle in to a solid and productive player who might even get a few all star nods. If he produces for a full season like he did in 2007, expectations will be revised upwards. He may not get better before he gets worse — in fact, I’d bet that his numbers next year aren’t nearly as good per plate appearance as this year — the law of large numbers is on my side.
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p>I do find it ironic that you pooh-pooh Rollins’ season last year as an aberration and are certain that he won’t get 30 HR in a season ever again, but are also convinced that Ellsbury is a top 5 lead off man based on 116 career MLB at bats.
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p>
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p>Still, while OBP is more important than BA for leadoff, you overestimate the range of OBP for leadoff hitters. No question that Rollins’ OBP is low for batting leadoff, but not significantly low. Only 14 players stole 25+ bases and had a .350 OBP last year. Rollins’ .344 puts him square on the average, if all you’re asking your leadoff hitter is 25 SBs a year. Rollins had over 40 SBs, and also and tons of power for a leadoff man. A 2B is never worse than a single and another SB. It’s no surprise that he led the league in runs, 2nd to A-Rod in the MLB.
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p>So yeah, I’d take the slight downside on OBP for that power, even from a leadoff hitter. You think that his power is fleeting, but he did post 25 HRs the year prior, and his 2Bs and OBP have been quite constant throughout his career, as has his SBs.
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p>I’d also take a 29 year old with seven years of consistent high quality production including MVP votes for 5 of those 7 years over a kid with 100 great ABs. I’m a “bird in the hand” kind of guy.
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p>Do I like Ellsbury? Sure I do. Exciting, productive, and may develop to be a four-tool player in a year or three. But, he might not, and if I’m interested in winning the World Series over the next three years, I’m ready to deal for a proven 28ish year old guy with a 4 year contract.
Who’s that 28ish guy with a 4 year contract, relative to this discussion? Certainly not Santana, 29 and a free agent after the season.
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p>Thus making my point. There aren’t a lot of quality leadoff hitters out there who can steal bases. If a team wants a high OBP guy in there, above .350, most of them (such as the Sox) have relied on guys who aren’t the prototypical leadoff hitters – hence why we’ve had Youk in that spot so often, and now more recently Pedroia. Because I think OBP is such an important factor, I think it’s a solid decision to do that. However, Ellsbury is one of the rare people who can get on base and do lots of things while there. I’m well aware that he almost certainly performed above the law of averages and would come back down to reality – and have already taken that into consideration in where I think he’ll hit at. That said, I’ve looked at the careers of hundreds of MLB players, having played fantasy baseball for years and years and winning more leagues than I’ve lost (literally)… I think I know a good player when I see them. I’ll be glad to eat my words if Ellsbury isn’t in next year’s ROY hunt and has several All Star seasons ahead of him no matter where he plays… but I highly doubt I’m going to be wrong here.
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p>Meanwhile, no matter how you look at it, the Sox would be foolish to trade a positional player away when we have plenty of good pitching to get a good pitcher back. It would make much more sense for us to be willing to part with either Buchholtz or Lester and maybe even both for Santana, far less sense to give up Ellsbury.
It is really too soon to tell if he is that type of player. We won’t know until he has a turn through the league, and they have figured him out. I agree that, at present, he has the potential to be the Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
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p>Santana is more of a crapshoot than generally ackowledged, as well. The numbers are impressive, yes, but they are run up in an un-balanced schedule in which his team gets 19 games against Chicago, KC and Texas. Josh Beckettt’s numbers would be pretty good if he didn’t ever have to play NY. I’m not convinced that Santana’s numbers against NY would hold up once he faces them a few times.
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p>I’m really not sold that this guy is Pedro 1999, or even Clemens in his prime territory. So I am highly unconvinced that the Red Sox should suurender the potential Treasure of the Sierra Madre AND $25 million/year for this guy.
Firstly, Santana is 28. His birthday is March 13, 1979.
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p>Secondly, he is coming with a 4-6 year contract. You see, he has a no trade clause on his contract with the Twins, and so he can leverage that contract to require that the team that trades for him has a side-by-side contract extension for him. He and his agent have made it clear that he wants 6 years, $150 million. I don’t know if that’s what they’ll get [I suspect the last two years will be option years].
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p>So, yes Santana would qualify as a 28 year old with a 4-6 year contract in the event that the Yanks or Sox trade for him.
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p>And if you want to play “I’m a bigger fantasy geek than you” that’s fine. I’ll concede. I ran a Rotisserie league for a few years in the 1980s, but whatever. I humbly submit to you that being good at Fantasy baseball has no bearing whatsoever in being able to scout talent, or in projecting how good a guy with 100 ABs is going to end up in a few years. I suspect that just about every guy who gets paid to work for an MLB team would agree, particularly the guys who have holsters for their radar guns.
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p>I disagree with your “no matter how you look at it” comment… Wake and Shill are both nursing old-man injuries, and frankly, there’s never enough pitching to go around. Santana is probably directly worth an extra 3-5 wins, and because he’ll result in the 2-4 slots becoming 3-5 slots, he’s probably worth another 2 or 3 wins because the Sox effectively get matchups of 2-3, 3-4, and 4-5 every rotation.
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p>Santana’s VORP in 07: 57.7 (10th in MLB pitching). 06: 79.6 (1st). 05: 73.0 (2nd). 04: 89.5 (1st). For those who don’t know Value Over Replacement Player, it measures the difference between the number of runs an “average” MLB player would have been responsible for and the player in question. In 2007, an average pitcher would have given up 57.7 more runs than Santana over 35 starts.
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p>Ellsbury may be in the ROY hunt, but Santana’s going to be in the Cy Young hunt again next year — and that’s indicative of being worth more wins.
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p>Bottom line? Santana’s worth far more than Ellsbury head to head. Start talking salary, long term contracts, etc and it gets more complex. Santana’s worth a chunk of extra wins next year; Ellsbury is likely worth fewer and the availability of pretty good hitters is higher than pretty good pitchers, so the next-best route is more attractive to find another hitter, particularly in the outfield. And with all due respect, anyone who’d sacrifice pitching for hitting spends far too much time adding up columns to get points and not enough time actually paying attention to the game itself. Pitching wins championships.
(Yes, I’m a star wars geek =P)
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p>I know fantasy baseball doth not equate to real life, but I was just making the point that I’ve seen this before and, based on also seeing him play in at least 20 games this past season, I’m very confident he’s going to be an All Star Caliber player. Of course, that’s only a prediction – just like all these other people are predicting Santana will win Cy Youngs with the BoSox.
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p>By no means am I saying Santana is no good. By no means am I saying I wouldn’t trade Santana for Ellsbury straight up; I’d do that any day of the week. However, we don’t live in that world: in this world, we’re going to have to give up Ellsbury and 2-3 other solid prospects, all of whom are likely to at least make it to the bigs and some of whom could be very good players at that level. Not only that, but we’ll be paying Santana obscene amounts of money that I highly doubt he’ll be worth, especially on the backend of those 4-6 years.
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p>Sadly, we’re not playing the game of head to head: I just find Ellsbury as too valuable as a battle-tested prospect at Santana’s price to give up, especially considering we’re going to lose other players who could become studs as well.
News reports make it sound like Lester plus some guys instead of Ellsbury and some guys.
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p>I’m not sold on Lester; he nibbles.
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p>That could set up one hell of a pitching rotation in 2008.
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p>Would they need to go back and weeten up Beckett’s hometown discount in order to keep all the campers happy?
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p>If they can pull of this trade without parting with Ellsbury and Buchholz, that would be impressive.
I’d be ecstatic. I’ve never been sold on Lester, at least as a top-end kind of pitcher. Great stuff, but he can’t seem to keep people off base or go beyond 5 innings. He’s fearless and gets out of a lot of jams, but in the end it will catch up with him. There’s only so many jams people can get out of before giving up a big inning.
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p>By the bye, I can’t remember who insisted Santana had several years left on his contract, but I knew I read before that he was going into his last year… and I just read the very same again, on ESPN. The whole reason why we’re having this discussion is because the Twins know they can’t resign him after the year is up (Santana already rejected a 20 mil/year offer from them, for several season). Just had to get that off my chest LOL.
Red Sox will probably not change their philosophy and have people run into outs in front of Manny and Ortiz.
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p>Also, I don’t think anyone is projecting him to have any power.
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p>He looks like he will be good, but BP (that Charley mentioned above – and that reference bumps him up a couple spots in my estimation) rates Buchholz higher than Ellsbury
they run out of a double play. Ramirez and Ortiz put the ball on the ground a combined 329 times last year, hitting into 37 double plays. A runner on second or third with one or two outs is a heck of a lot better than bases empty with two or three outs.
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p>I haven’t seen any power projections for Ellsbury either, but I do think the Sox would Ellsbury go for about 40 or 50 steal attempts per year, if not more if he can keep his CS% below 15%.
Intra-division rivalry: The Yankees will pay through the nose to get serious pitching after the year they just had and will not be outbid. Personally, methinks Theo is just driving up the cost to make the Yanks nostrils really really sore…
But he’s also smart enough [I hope] to know that the Yankees could pull out at any time or Santana might just prefer the Sox and exercise his no-clause to the Yanks quietly to Twins management, resulting in them pulling the trigger with Epstein.
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p>I think it’s a great trade for years 1-4. What happens 5 or 6 years from now? I don’t know how deep the farm teams are, what the Sox’s contract layout looks like for pitching, who’ll be 5 and 10 guys, etc. Epstein does.
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p>He don’t even hafta be smart… since Theo’s (now) a veteran of many trade deals that have fallen through or otherwise gone awry I expect it’s made his way into his DNA by now. I just don’t see the Sox that desperate for pitching… I think, however, they are willing to play chicken if it means the Yankees bleed.
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p>I don’t know what it is but the Red Sox pitching coaches and/or medical staff have something going for them that other teams don’t seem to have. I think, absent whatever magic they pulled out of their Red Stockings, Schilling would have been done after ’04… I credit them with a lot, especially patience. They pulled Beckett through a bad first year with the Sox and they’re doing the same with Dice-K and Okie-Dokie. I don’t think the Red Sox (who almost let Lowell slip because of the out years) are going into this blind…
ah, Buster Olneys, but the dollar figure that’s been thrown around is what makes it implausible to me. Santana is tremendous, but not at $25 million per year from the Sox.
Too much money tied up in one arm.
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p>The Yanks might pay it though, in part for the reasons you mention. We’ll see.
Last year, the Yanks had one of the most insane hitting years of all time… And it wasn’t just A-Rod. And they still didn’t make it past the first round playoffs.
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p>Why? I think you know the answer that… it begins with ‘P’ and ends with ‘itching’…
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p>Yanks don’t get anywhere without some new pitching blood.
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p>Now, I might be spurious as to why the Red Sox are chasing Santana. I really don’t know. They might really think they are in it. But I know why the Yankees are in it and I know they’ll even embarass themselves in the process if they hafta. I like to think that Theo is wily enough to see which way the wind blows and is trimming his sails to make the Yanks work that much more harder to get Santana. I don’t think we need Santana as much as the Yanks do, and I think sweetening the pot by dangling Ellsbury smacks of a ploy.
…but who the heck is Johan Santana?
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p>BTW, does anyone know what “Buchholz” translates to? Woodprint? I can’t find that one in any of my German->English dictionaries.
Buch= “Cy”
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p>Hol=”Young”
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p>The “z” makes it plural.
is about to become an extremely wealthy man, one way or another.