Cardinals Acquire Feliz, and are now Worse
Another August deal went down involving the National League Central yesterday, this time involving the St. Louis Cardinals and the Houston Astros. The Astros sent Pedro Feliz north to Missouri, and will receive David Carpenter, a 25 year old reliever who is having a solid season for the Cardinals High-A team.
Carpenter is, simply put, not a loss for St. Louis. Tim McCullough of Future Redbirds wrote of Carpenter last night:
For David, he’s likely in a better place now. He’s got legitimate relief arm but he’s more of a fringe setup type than a closer (and that’s a pretty rosy assessment). The Astros system is barren as opposed to the Cardinals relief system that has guys like Adam Reifer, Eduardo Sanchez, Casey Mulligan, Blake King, Francisco Samuel, etc. in front of him.
A guy whose ceiling is a “fringe setup guy” isn’t much of a cost. Sure, it’s good for Ed Wade that he managed to rid himself of Feliz while adding a living, breathing human being with multiple working body parts, including an arm that can throw a baseball, but that’s not the real story here.
The real story is how Pedro Feliz can possibly fit into the Cardinals plans for success. The Cardinals are now 3.5 games behind Cincinnati, thanks to a six game winning streak by Cincinnati combined by a four game losing streak in St. Louis. The Cardinals are certainly looking to win games now, and there is a very legitimate question as to whether Feliz may actually hurt in that regard.
The Astros decision to sign a marginal player such as Feliz was questionable at the time. He was a no-bat, all-glove third baseman who, at age 35, could see either one or both of those factors drop dramatically. The simultaneous collapse of both sides of Feliz’s game has resulted in possibly the worst player in baseball. Feliz is walking less, his power is down, and his BABIP has fallen to .232. Given Feliz’s advanced age, the decline in his other skills, his career .267 BABIP, and his 4% drop in line drive rate, that BABIP doesn’t appear to be bad luck, it just appears to be a complete lack of Major League ability. Throw in a glove that has gone from elite to poor – his UZR, RZR, and TZ are all far, far below their excellent career marks – and the results is a player worth -1.5 WAR in just over 300 plate appearances, making him the worst position player in baseball this season.
There’s simply no reason to think that Feliz and his completely broken skillset provides any sort of upgrade over Felipe Lopez, or anybody around MLB, for that matter. Tyler Greene likely would’ve been a superior option in house, if only for his glove and the fact that he has shown some life in AAA. Aaron Miles, despite being the embodiment of the replacement player, is probably better than Feliz. Craig Counsell would have been a better option off of the waiver wire.
By adding Feliz to the roster, the St. Louis Cardinals have simply made themselves worse. He doesn’t appear to be a capable defensive replacement. What little bat he once had has completely evaporated. Feliz may be the worst player in baseball who has received playing time with any sort of regularity. There’s a chance that Feliz reaches some sort of respectability in St. Louis much as there is a chance of any baseball player having a good month, but that certainly doesn’t mean that we should expect it. The Cardinals job of catching the Reds is at least as hard as it was at this time yesterday. The addition of Feliz may have made it harder.
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“Feliz may be the worst player in baseball who has received playing time with any sort of regularity.”
Sigh…all these Johnny-come-lately’s trying to steal my crown…
Yuni, you would be one of the best hitters on the M’s this year.
top 6, at least
If there’s anything the Astros have in their system, it’s relief pitchers. We have more and better relief prospects than the Cardinals, in fact. I’d still rather have David Carpenter in my farm than Pedro Feliz stinking up a roster spot. Something for less than nothing, baby.
I don’t know how you could drop dramtically from ‘no bat,’ but apprently Feliz found a way.
Why would John make such an awful move? We need upgrades, not retreads.
Not only that, but if he’s “powerless” in Houston as a RHB, how is he going to perform now?
Man, the non-Pujols IF is about as light of a hitting groupo as one could imagine.
I’d bet our non-Pujols IF batters are weaker than their 1982 counterparts. Yikes!
can we really be that confident in the 2010 UZR and fielding metrics for Feliz with only 80 observations? his average UZR/150 for the prior 3 seasons is 14.9–shouldn’t we look more at that?
Yes, that is correct. It is unfortunate that some authors choose to use small recent samples to represent future estimated performance in order to support a thesis they are proposing, while at other times those same authors (I don’t know about that in this case) decry using recent performance (as opposed to a credible projection) as a proxy for the future when that approach is convenient for their thesis.
“Feliz may be the worst player in baseball who has received playing time with any sort of regularity.”
I was afraid during the offseason RAJ was going to give Pete Happy a long multi year contract extension. The magic eight ball actaully worked for Rueben on this decision.
“Throw in a glove that has gone from elite to poor – his UZR, RZR, and TZ are all far, far below their excellent career marks – and the results is a player worth -1.5 WAR in just over 300 plate appearances, making him the worst position player in baseball this season.”
Obviously, he has had a terrible year. However, it’s misleading to equate “most negative WAR” with “worst position player in baseball,” simply because you have to be given a certain amount of playing time to accumulate that much (negative) value. To do that, you at least have to have some sort of track record that suggests the playing time is warranted (or you are being paid a lot of money, which is again the result of having a track record).
Surely, Feliz has been awful this year — and the only sense in which he might be an upgrade is that he is an actual 3B by trade. At the same time, there have surely been “worse” players this year, it’s just that they weren’t given the opportunity to rack up the poor cumulative stats that Feliz, Betancourt, and some of these others have. Brandon Wood is one player who comes to mind.
When does Freese get back into the lineup? For a while he and Jaime Garcia were quite a pair of successful rookies.
That was supposed to be a reply to the story not WY’s comment.
To be fair he does qualify the statement later: “Feliz may be the worst player in baseball who has received playing time with any sort of regularity.”
I don’t think that’s fair either. Feliz was a solid ~2 WAR player for a long time before 2010. It seems unfair to write him off after 3/4′s of a season of miserable play.
Why are you so negative? Like they say, if it happens all the time, it’s not a mood … it’s your personality.
If I remember at the time, Feliz’s “marginality” wasn’t the issue. The FG analysis was that [1] he would earn the money, but [2] the Astros don’t need him because he’s not a contender.
Did any of the projection systems envision such a marginal player?
Is that even possible through 2/3 of a season?
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I agree with your conclusion, that this trade doesn’t really help the Cardinals and if performances continues, actually hinders them.
The “worst player in basebal” line gets a little old when it’s said multiple times, specially coming form fans/authors. That’d be like ugly chicks getting a kick out of calling someone the “ugliest bikini model”, or dropouts making fun of the “dumbest doctor”.
We get that Feliz is not doing well. I don;t see why you’re getting so much enjoyment out of it. I know it makes analysis easy, it’s just weird to see you so fervent over a trade as small as this.
Well put, CircleChange11.
To Alex B. – Freese is done for the year. (mobile doesn’t have a reply function)
That’s correct and that’s the reason for the trade.
Feliz can play 3B every day, and it allows Lopez to platoon at other positions as well, for example at 2B v. LHP, and give days off here and there. Lopez is also a decent guy to have PH, as a switch hitter … he gives LaRussa more options … and TLR loves himself some options.