mr marcus
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2016 MLB thread. THE CUBS HAVE BROKEN THE CURSE! Chicago Cubs are your 2016 World Series champions
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by proshares,
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Watching Ryan Zimmerman throw the ball to 1B makes me want to fling myself off of the top of the Washington Monument :x
Son...I JUST came in here to say something about this. I was 
last night when he made that snag at 3rd. Not so much for the glove-work, but more so for the toss over to 1st. Granted, the throw made it, but holy ****...what the hell happened to his arm? Anyways...Strasburg's stuff was FILTHY last night. Also, for as much publicity as Harper gets, Rendon is the best young position player on that team. Both he and Strasburg SHOULD be all-stars. That's all I'll say about the Nats...feel dirty.
Hell of a win for the O's. Tillman brought his A-game, and the bullpen was fantastic...especially after a LONG and miserable outing vs. the Sox the day before. Just gotta keep the momentum up.
mr marcus
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Tillman didn't bring his A game...nats just can't hit for ****...and the all mighty Bryce Harper is still slumping
/salt
And that throw by Zimmerman was so bad ...didn't decide the game but I have this feeling he will cost an important game later this year
/salt
And that throw by Zimmerman was so bad ...didn't decide the game but I have this feeling he will cost an important game later this year
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Oh yea...
The disrespect. I love it.
The disrespect. I love it.
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From all the injuries and surgery to his arm, he's not able to make his "regular" throw from the corner like he used to. He's only able to make that the throw that he currently uses. With that being said, I expect to see him starting at 1st base next year.Watching Ryan Zimmerman throw the ball to 1B makes me want to fling myself off of the top of the Washington MonumentSon...I JUST came in here to say something about this. I waslast night when he made that snag at 3rd. Not so much for the glove-work, but more so for the toss over to 1st. Granted, the throw made it, but holy ****...what the hell happened to his arm?
He's allowed more than 4 ER's something like 9 times in the last 120 starts, I wouldn't say he gets hit that hard. He's also had to play in front of some shoddy defense most of the time since '10. But I agree, I would say Felix is the most consistently at his peak followed by Kershaw.
But like the Felix/Kershaw argument...you're talking about the most dominant guys, it's really all a matter of preference at a certain point.
Has Wacha even started throwing yet?
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Seeing a lot of Red Sox fans I know hating on Jeter being the starting SS for the AL
Far be it from me to defend those rats
but for fans of teams like the A's, I might see where they're coming from. Nothing on the fault of Jeter or the fans, this is all on MLB and their stupidity of making this game count. If I'm an A's fan, the last thing I wanna see is Jeter playing 3 innings at short in a game that might decide whether I start the WS in Oakland or in St. Louis or LA.I posted Keith Law's a couple pages back but I'll post two of the better ones here.
Timelines dictate massive Cubs-A's deal.
The A's have added a huge injection of both quality and depth into their rotation, but it does come at a cost -- their last two first-round picks, both excellent prospects right now, who will boost a Cubs system that was already among the top five in baseball. In a significant deal, both sides add impact, with different timelines in mind.
Jeff Samardzija has gone from DFA candidate after 2011 to mid-rotation starter in 2012. Now, he's throwing like a front-of-the-rotation starter, and he'll hit his 30s with less mileage on his arm than almost every other No. 1 starter to reach that milestone. Before the 2012 season, he simplified his delivery and tightened up his slider while also beginning to work more to the lower third of the zone with his fastball, though it was really the slider's development into a bona fide out pitch that helped him become an above-average major league starter. This year, he's been locating the fastball more consistently (with a career-best ground ball rate of 52.5 percent) and has shown better life on the pitch without losing velocity. He has the size and delivery to hold up for 220 innings a year, and he's probably worth two to two and a half wins to the A's for the rest of this year, with the potential for a 5-WAR season next year before he heads off into $20 million-a-year free agency.
Hammel has pitched nearly as well as Shark this year, though he doesn't have the same ceiling or long-term outlook and is essentially just a two-month rental. He's returned to the form he showed in 2012 for Baltimore, but he's using the two-seamer even more this year, is having more success with it and has also gained effectiveness on the four-seamer because hitters aren't certain which way the ball is going to move. For Oakland, he probably replaces Tom Milone in the short-term, but Jesse Chavez isn't going to be able to handle 200 innings after several years in relief and hasn't been as effective the second time around the league, so at some point I expect Hammel to take work from Chavez. It's a gain of a win over the rest of the year, maybe more if you figure Chavez was going to either lose most of his effectiveness or not hold up under the workload.
In exchange for the two starters -- about 50 starts from Samardzija and about 15 from Hammel -- the Cubs get one of the top prospects in baseball, along with another solid to above-average prospect and a back-end starter who's major-league ready. (There's a PTBNL heading to Chicago too, but my sources indicate he won't change the balance of the deal at all.)
If you look at it in pieces, you could pitch the deal as Addison Russell and Dan Straily for Samardzija, then Billy McKinney straight up for Jason Hammel, both of which are strong returns for the Cubs.
Russell is a top-five prospect in the game, a true shortstop with an advanced bat who shows good on-base skills and line-drive power, even though he's just 20 years old in Class AA. He has some of the best hands I've ever seen on a prospect, both as a fielder and at the plate. He slimmed down before his senior year of high school to prove to scouts that he could stay at shortstop, and he has the soft, quick hands for the position, as well as plenty of arm, though he needs refinement on his footwork to remain there. At the plate, he has a simple, fluid swing that produces hard line-drive contact and should eventually lead to 15 to 20 homers a year, if not more. His approach at the plate is already advanced and continues to improve; he came into July 4 with as many walks as strikeouts in his brief Double-A tenure, which was interrupted by a hamstring tear that cost him more than two months. He could still be ready for the major league club next spring, though a return engagement in the Arizona Fall League to make up for the lost at-bats would help significantly. In the long term, he's a potential All-Star at shortstop who posts high OBPs with the aforementioned power and above-average defense.
The Cubs are quite loaded in the infield, with Javier Baez currently playing short in Triple-A, natural shortstop Arismendy Alcantara playing second and former shortstop Kris Bryant at third. Russell is the best shortstop of the entire group, so his arrival could hasten a chain of position switches with Baez going to third and Bryant to right field. It also could put Starlin Castro, who is showing signs of life with the bat again, on the trade block in the next 12 months, depending on Russell's health and progress in the minors.
McKinney's superficial stats this year don't tell a great story about his skill set, in part because he's 19 years old and in Class A. He is taking the same express route that Russell took the previous year, from the draft one June to the California League 10 months later. McKinney is a pure left fielder with a pretty, left-handed swing that he can repeat well and that has good loft in its finish. He loads his hands a little too high and deep, though his hand acceleration is so good that he can get the barrel to the zone in time to make contact. Cutting that load slightly might produce better results when he puts the ball in play. Despite being the Cal League's second-youngest regular, he's making a lot of contact and showing power and patience, though a recent shift to get him more aggressive earlier in the count has cut down on his walks. He projects as an above-average regular in left, even if his defense is just neutral there; I think he has the instincts to end up an asset there with the glove.
Straily is more than a throw-in, even though he's been just replacement level for the A's in 38 innings this year. He boasts a four-pitch mix led by an above-average slider but has a fringy fastball. He doesn't have the command to succeed with this arsenal yet, because the slider, while sharp, isn't a great chase pitch, and he has to rely on missing bats in the zone -- a trick that requires more precise location than he's shown so far. He has four years of control remaining after this season and will be cheap for the next two, at least, which makes him a valuable asset for the Cubs as much because of cost as because of performance, as they'll need some rotation depth and don't have cheap, major league ready starters in their high minors right now.
Overall, the trade seems to make sense for both sides because the two clubs are at such different spots in the success cycle. The A's are in win-now mode and have just gone all-in while also deleting from the trade market two starting pitchers, potential targets for their rivals in the AL playoff race. The Cubs are still building, weren't able to sign Samardzija to an extension with which they felt comfortable and were able to add one of the best prospects in all of baseball -- plus two other pieces.
If the A's win the World Series with Samardzija and Hammel, I'm sure they'll be able to live with watching Russell make All-Star teams for the Cubs while McKinney nails down left field.
Jeff Samardzija has gone from DFA candidate after 2011 to mid-rotation starter in 2012. Now, he's throwing like a front-of-the-rotation starter, and he'll hit his 30s with less mileage on his arm than almost every other No. 1 starter to reach that milestone. Before the 2012 season, he simplified his delivery and tightened up his slider while also beginning to work more to the lower third of the zone with his fastball, though it was really the slider's development into a bona fide out pitch that helped him become an above-average major league starter. This year, he's been locating the fastball more consistently (with a career-best ground ball rate of 52.5 percent) and has shown better life on the pitch without losing velocity. He has the size and delivery to hold up for 220 innings a year, and he's probably worth two to two and a half wins to the A's for the rest of this year, with the potential for a 5-WAR season next year before he heads off into $20 million-a-year free agency.
Hammel has pitched nearly as well as Shark this year, though he doesn't have the same ceiling or long-term outlook and is essentially just a two-month rental. He's returned to the form he showed in 2012 for Baltimore, but he's using the two-seamer even more this year, is having more success with it and has also gained effectiveness on the four-seamer because hitters aren't certain which way the ball is going to move. For Oakland, he probably replaces Tom Milone in the short-term, but Jesse Chavez isn't going to be able to handle 200 innings after several years in relief and hasn't been as effective the second time around the league, so at some point I expect Hammel to take work from Chavez. It's a gain of a win over the rest of the year, maybe more if you figure Chavez was going to either lose most of his effectiveness or not hold up under the workload.
In exchange for the two starters -- about 50 starts from Samardzija and about 15 from Hammel -- the Cubs get one of the top prospects in baseball, along with another solid to above-average prospect and a back-end starter who's major-league ready. (There's a PTBNL heading to Chicago too, but my sources indicate he won't change the balance of the deal at all.)
If you look at it in pieces, you could pitch the deal as Addison Russell and Dan Straily for Samardzija, then Billy McKinney straight up for Jason Hammel, both of which are strong returns for the Cubs.
Russell is a top-five prospect in the game, a true shortstop with an advanced bat who shows good on-base skills and line-drive power, even though he's just 20 years old in Class AA. He has some of the best hands I've ever seen on a prospect, both as a fielder and at the plate. He slimmed down before his senior year of high school to prove to scouts that he could stay at shortstop, and he has the soft, quick hands for the position, as well as plenty of arm, though he needs refinement on his footwork to remain there. At the plate, he has a simple, fluid swing that produces hard line-drive contact and should eventually lead to 15 to 20 homers a year, if not more. His approach at the plate is already advanced and continues to improve; he came into July 4 with as many walks as strikeouts in his brief Double-A tenure, which was interrupted by a hamstring tear that cost him more than two months. He could still be ready for the major league club next spring, though a return engagement in the Arizona Fall League to make up for the lost at-bats would help significantly. In the long term, he's a potential All-Star at shortstop who posts high OBPs with the aforementioned power and above-average defense.
The Cubs are quite loaded in the infield, with Javier Baez currently playing short in Triple-A, natural shortstop Arismendy Alcantara playing second and former shortstop Kris Bryant at third. Russell is the best shortstop of the entire group, so his arrival could hasten a chain of position switches with Baez going to third and Bryant to right field. It also could put Starlin Castro, who is showing signs of life with the bat again, on the trade block in the next 12 months, depending on Russell's health and progress in the minors.
McKinney's superficial stats this year don't tell a great story about his skill set, in part because he's 19 years old and in Class A. He is taking the same express route that Russell took the previous year, from the draft one June to the California League 10 months later. McKinney is a pure left fielder with a pretty, left-handed swing that he can repeat well and that has good loft in its finish. He loads his hands a little too high and deep, though his hand acceleration is so good that he can get the barrel to the zone in time to make contact. Cutting that load slightly might produce better results when he puts the ball in play. Despite being the Cal League's second-youngest regular, he's making a lot of contact and showing power and patience, though a recent shift to get him more aggressive earlier in the count has cut down on his walks. He projects as an above-average regular in left, even if his defense is just neutral there; I think he has the instincts to end up an asset there with the glove.
Straily is more than a throw-in, even though he's been just replacement level for the A's in 38 innings this year. He boasts a four-pitch mix led by an above-average slider but has a fringy fastball. He doesn't have the command to succeed with this arsenal yet, because the slider, while sharp, isn't a great chase pitch, and he has to rely on missing bats in the zone -- a trick that requires more precise location than he's shown so far. He has four years of control remaining after this season and will be cheap for the next two, at least, which makes him a valuable asset for the Cubs as much because of cost as because of performance, as they'll need some rotation depth and don't have cheap, major league ready starters in their high minors right now.
Overall, the trade seems to make sense for both sides because the two clubs are at such different spots in the success cycle. The A's are in win-now mode and have just gone all-in while also deleting from the trade market two starting pitchers, potential targets for their rivals in the AL playoff race. The Cubs are still building, weren't able to sign Samardzija to an extension with which they felt comfortable and were able to add one of the best prospects in all of baseball -- plus two other pieces.
If the A's win the World Series with Samardzija and Hammel, I'm sure they'll be able to live with watching Russell make All-Star teams for the Cubs while McKinney nails down left field.
The A’s and Cubs Blockbuster Trade.
We all knew Jeff Samardzija was going to get traded. We all knew Jason Hammel was going to get traded. We all knew the Oakland A’s were in the market for a starting pitcher. Perhaps, in retrospect, we should have expected some convergence of these things we knew. But I don’t think anyone expected that any team would kick start the July trading season by picking up both Cubs starters. Perhaps even fewer figured that a prospect like Addison Russell would be on the move, and I’m assuming that just about nobody could have seen a scenario in which the A’s traded Russell for a starting pitcher who wasn’t David Price.
It’s a shocking trade, one that changes the landscape in a few ways, but there’s a lot happening here, so let’s not gloss over the specifics:
A’s get 1.5 years of Samardzija
A’s get 0.5 years of Hammel
Cubs get SS Russell, 20, No. 11 on MLB.com’s preseason prospect list and No. 5 on Keith Law’s May update
Cubs get OF Billy Mckinney, 19, 2013 first-round pick and Baseball America‘s No. 2 Oakland prospect behind Russell
Cubs get RH SP Dan Straily, 25, owner of a 4.73 FIP in 230 major league innings
Cubs get unknown PTBNL
I’d like to think we can offer more insight here than “wow,” but, wow. You just don’t see trades like this. You rarely see upper-crust prospects getting traded, and when you do, like with Wil Myers, usually the team who moves them gets publicly crushed. We have two teams here at completely opposite ends of the win curve, operating from completely different motivations, and substantially impacting their present and futures by doing so.
Let’s start with the A’s here, since they’re obviously doing this with an eye towards winning now, as well they should be. Oakland is pretty clearly the best team in baseball right now, and that’s true whether you look at wins, run differential, playoff odds, any of it, to the point that we have them at a 97.9 percent chance of making the playoffs. Things would have to go really, terribly wrong for this team to miss the playoffs even as currently constituted, and that’s clearly not what this trade is about. It’s about doing better than losing in the first round, as they’ve done six times this century (plus another in the ALCS), including the last two years; it’s about taking advantage of the window their roster and the state of their competition has provided them.
You look at the rest of the American League, and you realize the circuit isn’t full of the juggernauts it used to have. The Rangers, Oakland’s main rival for the last half-decade, are an injury-ruined disaster. The Yankees are weaker than they’ve been in years. The Red Sox need a surge just to get back to .500. The Rays have completely collapsed. To have that AL East trio and Texas all down at the same time is better timing than the A’s could have possibly hoped for. The Tigers are still dangerous, but their bullpen is a mess and Justin Verlander clearly isn’t what he once was. It’s anyone’s guess what the Orioles, Royals and Mariners are going to be. The Blue Jays and Angels have offense, but they have rotation questions of their own, and suddenly there are two fewer options to go after.
And really, that’s a not-insignificant part of the prize, here. Yes, the A’s just shored up a weak spot in a big way, but they also ensured that their rivals couldn’t. Hammel may only be their fourth-best starter, but now he’s their fourth-best starter. He’s not going to be the one helping a competitor get to the playoffs or outduel them once there.
Think about how insanely competitive the AL has been for nearly a generation now, and realize how rare of a situation this was for the A’s. It’s pretty clear, then, that this is the right time to push those chips all-in. After this year, only Jed Lowrie and Jim Johnson (if he even lasts the season) are free agents, but after next year, Yoenis Cespedes, Scott Kazmir and John Jaso can all walk. Josh Donaldson, Josh Reddick, Brandon Moss and others are going to start seeing arbitration raises soon. They had to make the move now, and despite how productive their rotation has been, it’s clear that they needed to do more than cross their fingers and pray that it’d stay together; that’s how they ended up with actual replacement player Brad Mills making starts.
With just over half the season gone, we can see that the projections don’t consider any of the A’s starters likely to keep this up, for reasons that most know. Tommy Milone is a soft-tossing lefty; Scott Kazmir‘s track record, and that he hasn’t thrown 200 innings in seven years, is a concern; Jesse Chavez, though one of the season’s best stories, had two major league starts entering the year and has been hit hard in each of his last two starts.
Name ERA FIP xFIP WAR
Sonny Gray Actual 3.08 3.29 3.52 2.0
ZiPS ROS 3.54 3.38 - 1.3
Steamer RoS 3.93 3.71 - 1.1
Scott Kazmir Actual 2.61 3.42 3.45 1.8
ZiPS ROS 3.93 3.66 - 0.7
Steamer RoS 3.59 3.58 - 1.2
Tommy Milone Actual 3.79 4.58 4.57 0.5
ZiPS ROS 4.11 3.99 - 0.8
Steamer RoS 4.04 4.32 - 0.5
Jesse Chavez Actual 3.23 3.51 3.62 1.6
ZiPS ROS 4.05 3.86 - 0.3
Steamer RoS 4.09 3.99 - 0.7
Jeff Samardzija Actual 2.83 3.07 3.20 2.1
ZiPS ROS 3.48 3.38 - 1.4
Steamer RoS 3.75 3.54 - 1.2
Jason Hammel Actual 2.98 3.12 3.26 2.0
ZiPS ROS 3.73 3.76 - 0.7
Steamer RoS 3.90 3.85 - 0.8
There’s no one there likely to improve; there’s several likely to regress. That holds true for the additions, too, but they aren’t replacing Gray or Kazmir. Now, presumably, Mills is out of the rotation, and either Milone or Chavez joins him.
Samardzija, obviously, was the key here, with Hammel a necessary part, but one that probably is more to balance out the fact that Samardzija for Russell straight-up wasn’t going to work. If a Price trade couldn’t happen – Jeff Passan reported that they attempted to – and Cliff Lee‘s health can’t be relied upon, Samardzija is the obvious best pitcher available. Though the projections don’t see him as likely to keep up his early performance either (and note that his new league and ballpark are not factored in), he’s clearly a suitable partner with Gray at the top of the rotation. Going into a potential playoff series, Gray / Samardzija / Kazmir / Hammel looks a lot more dangerous than Gray / Kazmir / Milone / Chavez. That was a situation that was untenable over the long term, and the A’s knew it. They’ve probably just added three wins above replacement in the second half alone, plus however you want to define the odds of a better pitching performance in the playoffs.
Don’t forget, also, that the A’s also are left with options for the future, and not just because Daniel Robertson, probably their best remaining prospect, is also a shortstop. Hammel may be a rental, but Samardzija isn’t, which means he, Gray and Kazmir could be headlining the Oakland rotation in 2015. Or, they could look at the new-found depth they have, with the injured A.J. Griffin and Jarrod Parker returning, and attempt to flip the final year of Samardzija’s contract to fill a hole elsewhere or re-infuse the farm system, or do the same next July. Or, move a displaced starter now to try to improve second base. If they keep Samardzija for the full term he has left, they’ve purchased approximately 60-70 starts between the two ex-Cubs, not including potential playoff appearances. That’s 60-70 starts that won’t otherwise be made by Milone or Mills or Straily. There’s real, tangible value to that.
The A’s bought high here, and you can argue they overpaid. Make no doubt about that; Hammel was a $6m flyer this past winter, and Samardzija’s career consists of four up-and-down years as a reliever, two solid ones as a starter, and finally now his first plus-level campaign. If you’d have preferred that they held out for 1.5 years of Price in any Russell deal and for the A’s to have added a lower-level secondary starter elsewhere, like bringing back Brandon McCarthy, you couldn’t be faulted for that. It could be that a realistic deal with Tampa just wasn’t available to be made. You can dislike the particulars of this trade, it’s just difficult to argue that one wasn’t necessary.
It’s pretty clear, anyway, that the A’s are sick of getting bounced out in the first round of the playoffs, and that they feel the value from a rotation improvement now is worth cashing in a top prospect. Billy Beane chose to be bold here, and for good reason from where we stand. Still, there’s plenty of risk; fairly or (mostly) not, this trade is likely going to be judged on the Oakland side over the long-term almost entirely based on whether it brings them a World Series.
* * *
Of course, this has major repercussions for the Cubs, too. If trading off 40 percent of the starting rotation sounds like a familiar habit for the Cubs — and what a weird thing to say — that’s because it is. In 2012 they traded off Ryan Dempster and Paul Maholm; last year, it was Matt Garza and Scott Feldman. From those four moves alone, the Cubs have stockpiled Kyle Hendricks and Christian Villanueva (Dempster), Jaye Chapman and Arodys Vizcaino (Maholm), C.J. Edwards, Justin Grimm, Mike Olt and Neil Ramirez (Garza), and Jake Arrieta and Pedro Strop (Feldman). Arietta has already paid off fantastically, and Grimm, Strop & Ramirez have been big parts of the bullpen. Edwards might be their best pitching prospect. Trading starters for youth has worked out for the Cubs recently.
Now, they’ve added Russell — a 2011 first-rounder who briefly made it to Triple-A as a 19-year-old late last season before missing most of 2014′s first two months with a hamstring injury — to one of the deepest prospect pools in the game. Russell and Mckinney join Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, Albert Almora (all in the first 15 of MLB.com’s preseason Top 100) along with Jorge Soler, Arismendy Alcantara and others. It is an insanely, ludicrously enviable group of young players, and don’t forget that Anthony Rizzo and Starlin Castro are only 24 and playing like stars in the big leagues.
Of course, you’ll note the obvious, which is that all of the names in that last paragraph are hitters. Castro is a shortstop, Russell is a shortstop, Baez is for the moment a shortstop at Triple-A, and Alcantara has been previously, though he’s now playing second next to Baez. Bryant is a third baseman. Mckinney, Almora and Soler are all outfielders. Throw in Rizzo at first, keep Alcantara at second, look at what 2014 draftee catcher Kyle Schwarber is doing to poor A-ball pitchers, and suddenly you have yourself an entire lineup, just without the corresponding talent to pitch.
But then again, realize the baseball world we live in. Just in the past two days, both ESPN and the New York Times have run articles about the continuing decline of offense. By wOBA, this season is tied for the seventh-worst since integration, and so there’s an inefficiency to be exploited there. If offense is so difficult to find, then the team who can stockpile it puts themselves in a very, very good situation. The Cubs may have wanted to get pitching back for Samardzija and Hammel, but once they realized Russell was available it was too good of an option to pass up, and they’re clearly betting on teams with pitching to spare coming to their doorstep begging for someone who can actually hit the ball.
Maybe that will be Baez, a consensus Top-7 prospect across all the publications after a .282/.341/.578 (and 37 homers) season at 20 across two levels last year. Maybe it’s Castro, whose bounceback season suddenly makes a contract of five years and $44m (after this year), plus a $16m 2020 team option, look extremely appealing. Considering that all three of them, including Russell, could be in the bigs by this time next year, it’s a situation the Cubs don’t have terribly long to work out, making this offseason interesting.
We shouldn’t gloss over Mckinney, who is in High-A barely more than a year after graduating high school in Texas, and though he may be a bat-only left field type, he has plenty of bat to work with. We shouldn’t skimp on Straily, a soft-tossing righty with home run problems who seems questionable to be a member of the next good Cubs rotation. They’re both important pieces here, particularly Mckinney. But let’s be honest with ourselves; Russell is the get. A very good Cubs system just got remarkably better, and though watching Chris Rusin or Dallas Beeler or Hendricks join Arrieta and Travis Wood and Edwin Jackson may not be fun, 2014 was never a primary year for the Cubs anyway. From a Chicago side, it’s extremely difficult to not like this.
* * *
After all that, what are we left with? The A’s were already the best team in baseball, in a very favorable situation as far as competition and window goes, and now they’ve securely plugged a leak, making them the obvious favorites for October. The Cubs just added one of baseball’s brightest prospect talents into a system already full of hitting potential. It’s a fascinatingly fun trade all around, both for the names involved and the impact it has on the 2014 pennant race and the future fortunes of two franchises. We try to insta-judge trades being “won” or “lost,” but it’s hard to do that here. Both teams are closer to their goals than they were yesterday.
The real winner here? Well, it just might be Andrew Friedman and the Tampa Bay Rays, who just saw two of the top available pitchers get moved while only one contender benefits, leaving the Mariners, Cardinals, Dodgers, Angels, Blue Jays and everyone else to fight for Price. They might not get a prospect the caliber of Russell — there simply aren’t many in existence — but as that feeding frenzy gets going, the haul ought to be impressive. If this deal is any indication, July is going to be a blast.
It’s a shocking trade, one that changes the landscape in a few ways, but there’s a lot happening here, so let’s not gloss over the specifics:
A’s get 1.5 years of Samardzija
A’s get 0.5 years of Hammel
Cubs get SS Russell, 20, No. 11 on MLB.com’s preseason prospect list and No. 5 on Keith Law’s May update
Cubs get OF Billy Mckinney, 19, 2013 first-round pick and Baseball America‘s No. 2 Oakland prospect behind Russell
Cubs get RH SP Dan Straily, 25, owner of a 4.73 FIP in 230 major league innings
Cubs get unknown PTBNL
I’d like to think we can offer more insight here than “wow,” but, wow. You just don’t see trades like this. You rarely see upper-crust prospects getting traded, and when you do, like with Wil Myers, usually the team who moves them gets publicly crushed. We have two teams here at completely opposite ends of the win curve, operating from completely different motivations, and substantially impacting their present and futures by doing so.
Let’s start with the A’s here, since they’re obviously doing this with an eye towards winning now, as well they should be. Oakland is pretty clearly the best team in baseball right now, and that’s true whether you look at wins, run differential, playoff odds, any of it, to the point that we have them at a 97.9 percent chance of making the playoffs. Things would have to go really, terribly wrong for this team to miss the playoffs even as currently constituted, and that’s clearly not what this trade is about. It’s about doing better than losing in the first round, as they’ve done six times this century (plus another in the ALCS), including the last two years; it’s about taking advantage of the window their roster and the state of their competition has provided them.
You look at the rest of the American League, and you realize the circuit isn’t full of the juggernauts it used to have. The Rangers, Oakland’s main rival for the last half-decade, are an injury-ruined disaster. The Yankees are weaker than they’ve been in years. The Red Sox need a surge just to get back to .500. The Rays have completely collapsed. To have that AL East trio and Texas all down at the same time is better timing than the A’s could have possibly hoped for. The Tigers are still dangerous, but their bullpen is a mess and Justin Verlander clearly isn’t what he once was. It’s anyone’s guess what the Orioles, Royals and Mariners are going to be. The Blue Jays and Angels have offense, but they have rotation questions of their own, and suddenly there are two fewer options to go after.
And really, that’s a not-insignificant part of the prize, here. Yes, the A’s just shored up a weak spot in a big way, but they also ensured that their rivals couldn’t. Hammel may only be their fourth-best starter, but now he’s their fourth-best starter. He’s not going to be the one helping a competitor get to the playoffs or outduel them once there.
Think about how insanely competitive the AL has been for nearly a generation now, and realize how rare of a situation this was for the A’s. It’s pretty clear, then, that this is the right time to push those chips all-in. After this year, only Jed Lowrie and Jim Johnson (if he even lasts the season) are free agents, but after next year, Yoenis Cespedes, Scott Kazmir and John Jaso can all walk. Josh Donaldson, Josh Reddick, Brandon Moss and others are going to start seeing arbitration raises soon. They had to make the move now, and despite how productive their rotation has been, it’s clear that they needed to do more than cross their fingers and pray that it’d stay together; that’s how they ended up with actual replacement player Brad Mills making starts.
With just over half the season gone, we can see that the projections don’t consider any of the A’s starters likely to keep this up, for reasons that most know. Tommy Milone is a soft-tossing lefty; Scott Kazmir‘s track record, and that he hasn’t thrown 200 innings in seven years, is a concern; Jesse Chavez, though one of the season’s best stories, had two major league starts entering the year and has been hit hard in each of his last two starts.
Name ERA FIP xFIP WAR
Sonny Gray Actual 3.08 3.29 3.52 2.0
ZiPS ROS 3.54 3.38 - 1.3
Steamer RoS 3.93 3.71 - 1.1
Scott Kazmir Actual 2.61 3.42 3.45 1.8
ZiPS ROS 3.93 3.66 - 0.7
Steamer RoS 3.59 3.58 - 1.2
Tommy Milone Actual 3.79 4.58 4.57 0.5
ZiPS ROS 4.11 3.99 - 0.8
Steamer RoS 4.04 4.32 - 0.5
Jesse Chavez Actual 3.23 3.51 3.62 1.6
ZiPS ROS 4.05 3.86 - 0.3
Steamer RoS 4.09 3.99 - 0.7
Jeff Samardzija Actual 2.83 3.07 3.20 2.1
ZiPS ROS 3.48 3.38 - 1.4
Steamer RoS 3.75 3.54 - 1.2
Jason Hammel Actual 2.98 3.12 3.26 2.0
ZiPS ROS 3.73 3.76 - 0.7
Steamer RoS 3.90 3.85 - 0.8
There’s no one there likely to improve; there’s several likely to regress. That holds true for the additions, too, but they aren’t replacing Gray or Kazmir. Now, presumably, Mills is out of the rotation, and either Milone or Chavez joins him.
Samardzija, obviously, was the key here, with Hammel a necessary part, but one that probably is more to balance out the fact that Samardzija for Russell straight-up wasn’t going to work. If a Price trade couldn’t happen – Jeff Passan reported that they attempted to – and Cliff Lee‘s health can’t be relied upon, Samardzija is the obvious best pitcher available. Though the projections don’t see him as likely to keep up his early performance either (and note that his new league and ballpark are not factored in), he’s clearly a suitable partner with Gray at the top of the rotation. Going into a potential playoff series, Gray / Samardzija / Kazmir / Hammel looks a lot more dangerous than Gray / Kazmir / Milone / Chavez. That was a situation that was untenable over the long term, and the A’s knew it. They’ve probably just added three wins above replacement in the second half alone, plus however you want to define the odds of a better pitching performance in the playoffs.
Don’t forget, also, that the A’s also are left with options for the future, and not just because Daniel Robertson, probably their best remaining prospect, is also a shortstop. Hammel may be a rental, but Samardzija isn’t, which means he, Gray and Kazmir could be headlining the Oakland rotation in 2015. Or, they could look at the new-found depth they have, with the injured A.J. Griffin and Jarrod Parker returning, and attempt to flip the final year of Samardzija’s contract to fill a hole elsewhere or re-infuse the farm system, or do the same next July. Or, move a displaced starter now to try to improve second base. If they keep Samardzija for the full term he has left, they’ve purchased approximately 60-70 starts between the two ex-Cubs, not including potential playoff appearances. That’s 60-70 starts that won’t otherwise be made by Milone or Mills or Straily. There’s real, tangible value to that.
The A’s bought high here, and you can argue they overpaid. Make no doubt about that; Hammel was a $6m flyer this past winter, and Samardzija’s career consists of four up-and-down years as a reliever, two solid ones as a starter, and finally now his first plus-level campaign. If you’d have preferred that they held out for 1.5 years of Price in any Russell deal and for the A’s to have added a lower-level secondary starter elsewhere, like bringing back Brandon McCarthy, you couldn’t be faulted for that. It could be that a realistic deal with Tampa just wasn’t available to be made. You can dislike the particulars of this trade, it’s just difficult to argue that one wasn’t necessary.
It’s pretty clear, anyway, that the A’s are sick of getting bounced out in the first round of the playoffs, and that they feel the value from a rotation improvement now is worth cashing in a top prospect. Billy Beane chose to be bold here, and for good reason from where we stand. Still, there’s plenty of risk; fairly or (mostly) not, this trade is likely going to be judged on the Oakland side over the long-term almost entirely based on whether it brings them a World Series.
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Of course, this has major repercussions for the Cubs, too. If trading off 40 percent of the starting rotation sounds like a familiar habit for the Cubs — and what a weird thing to say — that’s because it is. In 2012 they traded off Ryan Dempster and Paul Maholm; last year, it was Matt Garza and Scott Feldman. From those four moves alone, the Cubs have stockpiled Kyle Hendricks and Christian Villanueva (Dempster), Jaye Chapman and Arodys Vizcaino (Maholm), C.J. Edwards, Justin Grimm, Mike Olt and Neil Ramirez (Garza), and Jake Arrieta and Pedro Strop (Feldman). Arietta has already paid off fantastically, and Grimm, Strop & Ramirez have been big parts of the bullpen. Edwards might be their best pitching prospect. Trading starters for youth has worked out for the Cubs recently.
Now, they’ve added Russell — a 2011 first-rounder who briefly made it to Triple-A as a 19-year-old late last season before missing most of 2014′s first two months with a hamstring injury — to one of the deepest prospect pools in the game. Russell and Mckinney join Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, Albert Almora (all in the first 15 of MLB.com’s preseason Top 100) along with Jorge Soler, Arismendy Alcantara and others. It is an insanely, ludicrously enviable group of young players, and don’t forget that Anthony Rizzo and Starlin Castro are only 24 and playing like stars in the big leagues.
Of course, you’ll note the obvious, which is that all of the names in that last paragraph are hitters. Castro is a shortstop, Russell is a shortstop, Baez is for the moment a shortstop at Triple-A, and Alcantara has been previously, though he’s now playing second next to Baez. Bryant is a third baseman. Mckinney, Almora and Soler are all outfielders. Throw in Rizzo at first, keep Alcantara at second, look at what 2014 draftee catcher Kyle Schwarber is doing to poor A-ball pitchers, and suddenly you have yourself an entire lineup, just without the corresponding talent to pitch.
But then again, realize the baseball world we live in. Just in the past two days, both ESPN and the New York Times have run articles about the continuing decline of offense. By wOBA, this season is tied for the seventh-worst since integration, and so there’s an inefficiency to be exploited there. If offense is so difficult to find, then the team who can stockpile it puts themselves in a very, very good situation. The Cubs may have wanted to get pitching back for Samardzija and Hammel, but once they realized Russell was available it was too good of an option to pass up, and they’re clearly betting on teams with pitching to spare coming to their doorstep begging for someone who can actually hit the ball.
Maybe that will be Baez, a consensus Top-7 prospect across all the publications after a .282/.341/.578 (and 37 homers) season at 20 across two levels last year. Maybe it’s Castro, whose bounceback season suddenly makes a contract of five years and $44m (after this year), plus a $16m 2020 team option, look extremely appealing. Considering that all three of them, including Russell, could be in the bigs by this time next year, it’s a situation the Cubs don’t have terribly long to work out, making this offseason interesting.
We shouldn’t gloss over Mckinney, who is in High-A barely more than a year after graduating high school in Texas, and though he may be a bat-only left field type, he has plenty of bat to work with. We shouldn’t skimp on Straily, a soft-tossing righty with home run problems who seems questionable to be a member of the next good Cubs rotation. They’re both important pieces here, particularly Mckinney. But let’s be honest with ourselves; Russell is the get. A very good Cubs system just got remarkably better, and though watching Chris Rusin or Dallas Beeler or Hendricks join Arrieta and Travis Wood and Edwin Jackson may not be fun, 2014 was never a primary year for the Cubs anyway. From a Chicago side, it’s extremely difficult to not like this.
* * *
After all that, what are we left with? The A’s were already the best team in baseball, in a very favorable situation as far as competition and window goes, and now they’ve securely plugged a leak, making them the obvious favorites for October. The Cubs just added one of baseball’s brightest prospect talents into a system already full of hitting potential. It’s a fascinatingly fun trade all around, both for the names involved and the impact it has on the 2014 pennant race and the future fortunes of two franchises. We try to insta-judge trades being “won” or “lost,” but it’s hard to do that here. Both teams are closer to their goals than they were yesterday.
The real winner here? Well, it just might be Andrew Friedman and the Tampa Bay Rays, who just saw two of the top available pitchers get moved while only one contender benefits, leaving the Mariners, Cardinals, Dodgers, Angels, Blue Jays and everyone else to fight for Price. They might not get a prospect the caliber of Russell — there simply aren’t many in existence — but as that feeding frenzy gets going, the haul ought to be impressive. If this deal is any indication, July is going to be a blast.
Oh and @CP1708, I'm posting from the airport on the way outta the country. If I'm up in the draft thread just @ me but give me a little bit of time...if you don't hear from me in a few hours just BPA me.
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Laroche doesn't even need a glove to catch a Zimmerman throw. It's the definition of a "soft toss."
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Sad but true.
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I prefer Waino to Felix and Kershaw because of his postseason experience and reliability in October. Lights out in the NLDS and NLCS. 2.53 career playoff ERA. Definition of a horse and able to set the tone for a series with a W in his team's favor.
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Meh, two bad starts, Wainwright has been rocked in the post season as well. Perception, I guess.
Are we including playoffs in this argument still,
Numbers will switch the order easily.
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Watching Ryan Zimmerman throw the ball to 1B makes me want to fling myself off of the top of the Washington Monument :x
From all the injuries and surgery to his arm, he's not able to make his "regular" throw from the corner like he used to. He's only able to make that the throw that he currently uses. With that being said, I expect to see him starting at 1st base next year.
Baseball fan fam? Haven't seen you in here before.
That's fair. Kind of.
Poor Felix being on the lowly M's all these years, he's never even had a chance to prove himself. Without having seen him in the playoffs though, I get the feeling that, as a follower, that he would be just as special, if not more, in the postseason. That's just the gut talking, of course. Maybe he gets that one game playoff this year to get his feet wet.
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Yep, Zim is pretty much a DH now. Hard to hide that arm anywhere.
Nats rocked him in Game 5 of 2012...we all know how that ended though. Why the **** do I keep bringing that damn game up?
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Those arm problems, man.
They need to keep him in the outfield or else he'll start thinking too much and overcompensating and develop Steve Sax/Chuck Knoublach syndrome.
They need to keep him in the outfield or else he'll start thinking too much and overcompensating and develop Steve Sax/Chuck Knoublach syndrome.
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I don't see why Felix wouldn't be just as good in the playoff's. Whenever the spotlight is on him he dominates, he plays even better on bigger stages
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Yes. I just don't really post or talk about baseball that much since it's such a LONG season. I get more interested in the season closer to the all-star game, or around the half-way mark.Baseball fan fam? Haven't seen you in here before.From all the injuries and surgery to his arm, he's not able to make his "regular" throw from the corner like he used to. He's only able to make that the throw that he currently uses. With that being said, I expect to see him starting at 1st base next year.Watching Ryan Zimmerman throw the ball to 1B makes me want to fling myself off of the top of the Washington MonumentSon...I JUST came in here to say something about this. I waslast night when he made that snag at 3rd. Not so much for the glove-work, but more so for the toss over to 1st. Granted, the throw made it, but holy ****...what the hell happened to his arm?
Pretty much. He'll be a 1st base next year.
Nah, outfield wouldn't work for Zimmerman champ. That would mean Bryce would have to be in centerfield which would mean Byrce he would be more acceptable to an injury or injuries, and given his recent history that's not a good thing. At this point, Zimmerman can still guard the corner, he's still good with his glove. It's just the throws that could be erratic or off line at times.Those arm problems, man.
They need to keep him in the outfield or else he'll start thinking too much and overcompensating and develop Steve Sax/Chuck Knoublach syndrome.
mr marcus
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Bryce doesn't mind being in CF tho...wish we had a decent 2nd baseman so we could shop laroche
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This has probably already been discussed...
But how in the heezy does Casey McGehee have 53 RBis with 1 HR???
But how in the heezy does Casey McGehee have 53 RBis with 1 HR???
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Gap to gap power.
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Of course Bryce doesn't mind being in CF, this is the same dude that said Span should be benched, but at least Span can get on base without being walked. The same can't be said for Harper right now, and I see that being the trend for quite some time when it comes to him.
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Bryce is actually a better defender in CF and never got hurt when he was out there. His injuries occurred when he was being moved all around the OF/sliding head first into 3B. And Span doesn't walk enough , especially from the leadoff spot. He doesn't see many pitches, his OBP is terrible, and he should probably be hitting 8th in the lineup. He is driving the ball better this year, though, as he's 4th in the league in doubles...though many of those have been bloop doubles.
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Just so I'm certain, between the two strictly for defensive purposes would you rather have Bryce or Span as the CF??
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I'd have to go with Span for sure, he's as smooth as it gets out there. If he had Bryce's arm
he'd be a Top 5 defensive CF.
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The two best records in baseball are in the weak AL West
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I'd have to go with Span for sure, he's as smooth as it gets out there. If he had Bryce's arm
Gotcha.
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