Twins-Brewers Deal Opens Possibility of Cameron to Yanks/Sox

The Twins and Brewers completed the first major deal of this young offseason when Milwaukee sent shortstop JJ Hardy to Minnesota for CF Carlos Gomez.  Certainly not a blockbuster, but a solid move for both sides with plenty of implications.

The Twins acquire a slick fielding SS, coming off a down offensive year.  Hardy could be in line for a bounce back year as suggested by a career low BABiP last season, though that was combined with a career low Line Drive rate as well.  Either way, Hardy should easily be worth the approximate $3 million he's likely to earn through arbitration over the next 2 years based solely on his defense.

On the other side, the Brewers acquire a top notch defensive CF who will be making peanuts for the next several years.  The downside of course is that Gomez has not been able to get on base with any regularity in his 1,000 or so major league at bats.  It's hard to make a case for a guy who's never had an On-Base % above .300 as an everyday major leaguer.  Ultimately this was a cost cutting move for the Brewers.  They'll pay Escobar less peanuts than they pay Gomez (because he has less ML service time) and they save Hardy's salary along with another $10 million from letting go the perennially underrated Mike Cameron.  It's a good deal for them if they take that $12 million or so of savings and invest it wisely elsewhere, whether that be into free agency, the draft, player development, etc.

But the biggest implication here for Northeast baseball, comes with Cameron's availability.  On the surface, Cameron is far from an ideal free agent acquisition.  He has a rather underwhelming career BA of .250, he strikes out about 150 times a year, and on opening day next season he'll be 37 years old.  But there is a lot to like about Cameron, as Dave Cameron over at Fangraphs wrote on Monday.  Cameron focuses on  stats such as WAR (Wins Above Replacement Level) and wOBA (Weighted On Base Average), which I haven't yet taken the time to explain in detail here.  But Mike Cameron's value can be seen even without the use of these advanced metrics.

Cameron's OPS (On Base Plus Slugging percentage) of .795 was good for 7th among the 25 major league center fielders who accumulated enough at bats to be eligible for the batting title this season.  And that was no fluke as he's only dipped below that .795 OPS once in the past 6 seasons, and that was while playing his homes games in the most pitcher-friendly park in baseball, Petco Park, where home runs go to die.  All the strikeouts drag down his offensive value, but he takes enough walks to be at least an adequate offensive player and hits enough home runs (23 per year the last 4 seasons, including 2 seasons in Petco Park) to be a above average offensive producer, probably just a notch behind more heralded free agents like Jason Bay or Johnny Damon.  And that's without even looking at Cameron's greatest asset: his defense*.

*For this point I do need to introduce a new metric to the discussion: UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating).  Ultimate Zone Rating basically measures how many balls hit to certain areas in the field that are converted into outs a by a fielder and compares that to the frequency with which other fielders on average converted balls hit to those certain areas into outs.  Simply put, it rewards fielders at a given position for getting to balls that most other fielders at that position weren't able to get to.  It's not a perfect system.  For example, it doesn't account for how hard a ball was hit or where a defender was positioned at any given time.  For this reason, UZR is most accurate over large sample sizes, one or two whole seasons, because over long periods of time, the differences between how hard certain balls were hit or where certain defenders were positioned at any given point in a game will tend to balance out.

Cameron's UZR's in center field for the last two seasons have been 11.3 and 10, respectively.  That's 11.3 and 10 runs saved above the average center fielder in baseball.  Those were good for 2nd and 3rd place among qualifying major league center fielders the last twoyear.  Now compare that to Jason Bay (-13 UZR) and Johnny Damon (-9.2 UZR), two of the worst defensive left fielders in the game in 2009.  And that alone doesn't tell the whole story because you also have to take into account that Cameron pulled off those stats at the most challenging outfield position, CF, while Bay and Damon were in LF (and in Bay's case, the smallest LF in baseball at Fenway Park).  Now if you trust the baseball geniuses that have come before us like Tom Tango (I do), then you'll accept his findings that average CF play is worth about 10 runs more than average LF play, so the difference of about 20 runs saved between Cameron and Bay and between Cameron and Damon then jumps to about 30 runs.

So Bay and Damon, would have to be at least 30 runs better than Cameron offensively to make up for that difference on defense and there is simply no evidence to suggest this is so.  According to calculations at Fangraphs, Bay was about 20 batted runs better than Cameron this year, Damon about 15 batted runs better.

A finally, the kicker: Cameron will probably demand just about the same deal that he earned last year, 1 year/ $10 Million.  Compared to Damon who is the same age as Cameron and likely to demand a 2-3 year commitment at approximately the same annual salary, or to Bay who is 32 years old and is likely to demand a 4 or even 5 year commitment worth $12-15 million per year, Cameron appears to be an absolute steal. 

The Yankees would get the added benefit of being able to move Melky Cabrera out of CF, where he's only about league average defensively, to a corner outfield spot where he's above average.  The Red Sox would be able to do the same with Jacoby Ellsbury, who to the naked eye does appear to be a great center fielder, though for some reason he has never put up particularly good UZR numbers in CF (he has put up great UZR numbers in limited time in LF and RF in his career).

Ultimately, I'd bet the Red Sox probably shell out the dollars to keep Jason Bay in Boston, if they don't decide to put down even more money to bring in the younger Matt Holliday.  And the Yankees will probably try to bring back Damon or Hideki Matsui on a 1-2 year deal and one of them is sure to bite.  But both teams really should consider Mike Cameron for their OF openings.  He'd be both cheaper, and arguably more productive overall, than any of their in-house options.

Another Low Cost, Potentially High Upside Pickup for Sox

While the Yankees were in the process of finishing off the Phillies for their 27th World Series Title, GM's from the other 28 teams were already hard at work, looking forward to 2010.  Several deals have already been completed with plenty more sure to come.  And as those deals are finalized, I'll be letting you know what these deals mean for the teams involved right here at Northeast Bias.  So I'll kick of this season of Hot Stove Analysis with the Red Sox' groundbreaking acquisition of Jeremy Hermida (ok, it's not so groundbreaking, I just love me some Hot Stove talk).

The Upside: Hermida is a one time 11th overall pick and ranked # 4 on Baseball America's Top 100 Prospects of 2006. BA also quotes an anonymous scout at the time as saying: "Everything he does is so easy. He has a 70 arm and he has one of the sweetest swings from the left side I've ever seen." (For those not aware, that "70" refers the scouts 20-80 scale on which they rate prospect skills, 80 being the best grade, 20 being the worst). Hermida then showed us all flashes of that top end potential in 2007 when batted .296/.369/.501 over 429 At-Bats.

The Downside: Hermida has flashed little of that potential since '07. His 2008 and 2009 seasons were forgettable at best, posting batting lines of .249/.323/.406 and .259/.348/.392, respectively. To make matters worse, after diving deeper into his promising 2007 season, you'll find that his BABiP* (Batting Average on Balls in Play) was a rather unsustainable .356. His defense also isn't great and that "70 arm" that the anonymous scout referred to above apparently has lost a gear or two since his call-up.

*For those unfamiliar with the vagaries of BABiP, here's a quick rundown. As the name suggests, this stat would include all at-bats that result in the ball being put in play (i.e. not a home run, strikeout, or walk). It has been shown that batters do have some control over their BAPiP (unlike pitchers and their BABiP against, but that's a post for another day). As a result, a batter's BABiP is generally consistent over his career. In Hermida's case, in his 3 other Major League seasons in which he's logged at least 300 AB's, his BABiP's have been .310, .311, and .311, respectively. Now put his 2007 BABiP of .356 alongside those numbers and tell me which one does not belong. This would suggest that Hermida benefited from some good luck in 2007.

Bottom Line: This deal follows Boston's blueprint of acquiring low cost, potentially high upside players. The strategy didn't work out too well with John Smoltz and Brad Penny last year but that doesn't mean it's a bad blueprint to follow. Nothing bad can really come of it because if the player doesn't work out, it doesn't really matter since it was a low cost acquisition. If it doesn't work out the Red Sox can just dump him (like they did with Smoltz and Penny) and at a projected salary of $2-3M (depending on Hermida's upcoming arbitration case) it's a no lose situation ($3 million is a rounding error for Boston). Hermida is decent insurance in case Jason Bay doesn't stay with the Red Sox and they don't acquire someone like Matt Holliday to replace him. Hermida's upside results not only from the fact that he was at one time considered a "can't miss" prospect, but also from the fact that he's still only 25 years old.  Considering that hitters generally hit their peak performance around the age of 27, Hermida's best years should still be in front of him.  And as Rob Neyer points out in his post on this subject, Hermida combined with a decent righty bat makes for a solid, if not inspiring, corner OF platoon even if he never quite approaches his star potential.

Despite Popular Belief, Burnett on 3 Days Rest Not Worst Idea Ever

Much has been written about Joe Girardi's decision to go with three starting pitchers for the World Series.  The overall track record is clear, starting pitchers on average have not not performed as well on three days rest in the postseason as they have on four.  For evidence of this see the table below.  It shows the resulting stats of pitchers who started on three days rest during the postseason vs. what those pitchers' stats were during the regular season of that year. 

Based on this, it should not have been a surprise to see AJ Burnett pitch ineffectively on Monday.  But what upsets me are the Blowhards who will (or have already) look at these results and say I told you so (even if they didn't).  Fortunately an extremely talented writer over at Fangraphs named Dave Cameron is already on top of it:

For many people, [these] two facts represent a causal relationship. Burnett struggled badly while going on short rest, so therefore, short rest caused the bad pitching. Unfortunately, life is never that simple.

The usual critique against bringing a pitcher back on short rest is that his stuff won’t be as crisp as it usually is. Burnett, however, was throwing his regular gas last night. His fastball averaged 94.2 MPH this season, and he sat at 93.8 MPH in his brilliant game two outing. Last night, his fastball averaged 94.5 MPH. Same deal with his curveball – 82.0 MPH on the season, 82.3 MPH last night.

In terms of velocity, Burnett had his usual arsenal. His fastball still had sink, and his curveball still had bite. The problem was that he couldn’t throw them for strikes.

--snip--

Of course, there’s the possibility that Burnett’s inability to throw strikes was due in part to his altered schedule. However, that’s something we simply can’t know. Burnett is not exactly the model of consistency. In five different starts during the regular season, he gave up six or more runs. On April 19th, he walked seven batters, and he issued six free passes on two other occasions. And, of course, he got torched in the first inning by the Angels in the ALCS less than two weeks ago. He did all of that on regular four day rest. Consistent command of his pitches is never something Burnett has had, and he probably never will. He’s a guy with great stuff who doesn’t always pitch up to the level of his natural abilities.

I certainly couldn't have said it better myself (and that's why I didn't).  The media loves to overreact to singular events.  But the fact is AJ Burnett has pitched quite well on three days rest in his career.  And when you compare it to the Yankees alternative for game 4, Chad Gaudin, AJ was the clear choice.  Lefties' triple slash stats (average / on-base / slugging) against Gaudin for his career are .293 / .389 / .433.  Simply put, the average lefty becomes Bobby Abreu when facing him.  Now imagine what lefties like Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Raul Ibanez become when facing that type of pitcher.  And that's not evening considering the fact that Gaudin has thrown one whole inning in the last month.

Now might it have been worth it to just sacrifice Game 5 and go at it with a fully rested AJ Burnett in Game 6?  Sure, it might have.  Unless bad AJ rears his ugly head on full rest just as he has on numerous occasions throughout this season.  Girardi has made plenty of questionable decisions this postseason, but this was not one of them.  He's got three two shots at one last win this season and he's going after that one win with the best pitchers he's got.  And as long as those pitchers are perfectly fine with throwing on short rest in pursuit of a Championship,  I just don't see how you can argue with that.