Valverde to Detroit
As we mentioned this afternoon, there continues to be mounting evidence that this is a strong buyer’s market. Adam LaRoche‘s signing continued the trend of non-star players receiving contracts in the $3 to $3.5 million per win range, as we’ve seen all winter, and even dating back towards the second half of last off-season.
As we head towards February, players are finding themselves with fewer and fewer options. Rather than having teams bid for their services, they are seeking out one team that may have a spot for them and asking for a contract offer. Wins are cheap and plentiful, as budget conscious teams continue to drive prices down.
And then, something like this happens – the Tigers give Jose Valverde a 2 year, $14 million contract, surrendering their first round draft choice in the process, since he was the last remaining Type A free agent on the market.
Seriously, in a market where everyone else is finding bargains, the Tigers pay $7 million a year for a good-but-not-great relief pitcher, and give up a draft pick for the right to do so. Were they not paying attention to the rest of the contracts being handed out? Did they not realize they were bidding against themselves? How do you justify dumping Curtis Granderson to save money, and then use that money (and more!) to sign a flyball reliever with command problems who has never pitched in the AL?
This isn’t anything against Valverde. He’s got a good arm with a fastball that averages 96 and a knockout splitter that racks up strikeouts, but we’re not talking about Mariano Rivera here. He’s a guy who pitches up in the strike zone and has a history of giving up home runs (which, you know, can be a problem when you’re asked to protect a one run lead) and has below average command to boot (career 3.6 BB/9).
That doesn’t mean he’s not useful – he’s racked up 6.4 WAR in his career for an average of 0.9 WAR per season. That makes him a good relief pitcher – not a great one, a good one.
For one year and a team that had money to spend, the salary wouldn’t be that bad. But two years and a loss of a draft pick? Really? In this market? On a team that is going cheap at second base and in center field?
Sorry, but this is a bad use of resources.
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What? $7 million/yr. plus a 1st rounder for a closer. In this market? I don’t get it either.
The thinking seems to be that their draft budget for 2010 will be stretched by the two compensation sandwich picks for the loss of Lyon and Rodney. I don’t see it.
Man, Detroit is collecting some serious flamethrowers.
Ryan Perry: http://www.fangraphs.com/fgraphs/8799_P_FA_20091003.png
Joel Zumaya: http://www.fangraphs.com/fgraphs/4699_P_FA_20090717.png
Jose Valverde: http://www.fangraphs.com/fgraphs/1726_P_FA_20091001.png
Dombrowski has been over rated for awhile, but maybe people are going to start taking notice now.
I feel like he’s been flying under the radar for awhile now because his most egregious sins have been long term contracts on players that have little hope of holding up the backend. Now his team is saddled with an assload of dead or near dead contracts. I would rank him #6 on the worst active GM’s list after Moore, Minaya, Hendry, Wade, and Sabean. I’m not sure I could pick a #7 at this point as the rest of the GM’s are all a great deal better than those 6.
And in defense of Hendry, I get the impression that he’s not a dumb guy, he’s just had some poor luck balloon on him and got pressured into extending some ill-considered contracts. Nevertheless, his recent track record is godawful.
Plus he had Dayton Moore in his own division to hide behind. But maybe he was getting jealous of The Contest. Have to balance it out, afterall: if Hendry or Sabean are nosing in you need a second AL GM to step it up.
My mind is boggled.
They could have given 7 jobless relievers each a $1M contract. Offer the best out of that bunch first shot at the closer role and trade away any of them you can–salary already paid for 2010.
Get some low level prospects, keep your draft pick, and make a reality show out of the whole thing…Survivor: Motor City.
Sure, might only have a 10% chance of working out, but seems like better odds than $14M/2yr for JV being a great investment.
Well, thanks for Granderson. Hope Valverde works out . . .
Yeah, and as a Perry owner I am seriously pissed that he didn’t even get a shot at the gig (following a Zumaya injury in March, anyway).
Wow. I was hoping the Cardinals might be able to get Valverde at a low price due to his Type A status possibly, but it only takes one idiot GM… Seriously, Valverde wouldn’t have gotten $7 million AAV for 2 years without his Type A status in this market, but Tigers gave him that plus gave up their first round pick?
I can’t imagine how pissed Tiger fans must be. How does the Granderson trade look in hindsight now that they’ve spent the money saved on Valverde?
Seriously, how do you know that?
What MLB execs have you spoken with .. or … what data are examining that led you to that conclusion?
In other words, what makes your comment any different than a ‘gut feeling’ or random comment? (Serious question)
I don’t mind that there are stupid GM’s out there (Thanks for taking Yuniesky of our hands, Dayton). But when it benefits the damn Yankees it’s a crime. Granderson is the kind of player you KEEP if you’re trying to win on the cheap, for crying out loud. And then to spend the money you saved on a guy you should only ever be looking at for this price when he’s the one thing separating you from the World Series? It just looks like monkey-with-a-dart-board decision-making.
But when it benefits the damn Yankees it’s a crime.
Yes, other teams should actively conspire against the Yankees, because god forbid Brian Cashman be allowed to pull a deal we’d laud Theo or Jack Z. or Andrew Friedman for.
We’ll laud Cashman plenty (and did: “For as much as the Yankees have a payroll advantage, they continue to win because Brian Cashman targets the right players. Granderson is a fantastic acquisition for them.”), and we’ll still hate the Yankees. We do exactly that for Theo and the Red Sox, after all (well, we mostly hate all the bandwagon fans more than the team in that case).
But go ahead: Yankees fans have everything a baseball fan could possibly want except an irrational martyr complex, so you might as well buy one of those too.
The whole problem with your, and Dave’s, reasoning is that it’s based on Granderson’s contract not being an albatross (Dom and 2009 say ‘doubt it’) and closers having no value (just wrong). It’s really that simple.
Now, if Dom is proven wrong on Granderson – he’s wrong. That stuff happens. But it’s not as if Granderson’s performance and contract indicate Dom should be hung by his fingernails or anything, because I’m sure he’s not the only GM with the same opinion about him
Dom likes Jackson in place of Granderson’s contract; he needed a bonafide closer. He now has both at a savings of roughly $3.5 mil to Granderson/Rodney. What’s this fuss all about?
Bonifide closer?
GM’s that are willing to pay more for a relief pitcher just because he is a “bonifide closer” generally don’t last too long.
I don’t see how Granderson’s contract is an albatross. His outlay if they don’t pick up his last year is: 5.5 / 8.25 / 10 / 2 =25.75
If you use 4M/win, he’d have to be worth: 6.4 wins over the life of the contract. If you think he’s an average fielder (historically 5 runs over 150 innings according to UZR) and his 2009′s performance was indicative of future performance despite a 40 point decrease in BABIP then his value would be around 2 WAR, which would be 6 wins over the life of the contract. There’s basically no way this can be an albatross barring injury.
As for Valverde, his outlay is: 7 / 7 = 14M
At the going rate of 4M/win, he has to be worth 3.5 wins to justify his contract. His best season he was worth 1.7 WAR… so even if he repeated that performance twice, he’d be only worth 3.4 wins. As for their need of a “bonafide closer” I’d argue that if you thought Rodney gave you heart attacks all of last year, Valverde isn’t exactly going to be Rolaids.
“But when it benefits the damn Yankees it’s a crime.”
It seems more to me like evidence that the Yankees are successful due to a capable front office, not just the money.
To be fair to dombrowski, the Granderson trade was a pretty good one for the Tigers. They got a pretty useful, young, cost-controlled CF who profiles to be at least average going forward, a potentially very good fireballing SP under team control, and a couple of potentially very nice bullpen pieces, for a guy who, whilst under good terms for the next year, starts to get fairly expensive after that.
There’s pretty good value in the current market in dumping contracts like that, because (if FA values stay the same) you can probably get a comparable player to Granderson on the FA market in 2012 or 2013 for the same sort of money that he’ll be making in those years. Grandy’s really only a significant bargain in 2010 and 2011, and it’s entirely possible that (having lost most of their big, horrible Dombrowski contracts) Detroit will be in rebuilding mode after those years anyway.
Someone read about “The Contest” and thought it would be fun to enter. Not sure if this is enough to be consideredd “in the race” though.
depends on how Scherzer adjusts to the AL and Jackson adjusts to the ML…
$5.5m on a 4 win CFer or $7m on a NL reliever(on a team that probably wont be contenting)? The mind boggles.
It wasn’t either or. They didn’t dump Granderson for nothing only to use that money to pay for Valverde. They got back a plethora of cost controlled players who project to provide tremendous surplus value over the next 5-6 years.
This move was made to appease casual fans in Detroit…. They wanted to see the Tigers make a move to offset the Granderson trade…
I dont care what people like us think, over 90% of people that will actually go PAY to go to the game will like this move…
It does suck, but the Tigers are set at closer now for 2 or 3 years…
You all will be singing a different tune about this team when they spend the $50 million per year they will have starting next offseason…
it begs the question then, why in the hell did they trade Granderson in the first place?
Because they got back an excellent haul.
Granderson hit .241 with a .319 OBP batting lead-off in 2009. That was the 2nd worse OBP for lead-off hitters in the AL with 400 Ab’s. Only BJ Upton’s was worse.
That’s good enough reason to put him on the trading block. The Tigers probably don’t want high salary guys who can’t get on base.
Polanco’s OBP batting 2nd was just .333, and that’s one reason why he was let go so easily.
That’s Moneyball.
I thought Fangraphs readers knew better than to throw meaningless splits out there. If you want to cite Granderson’s .327 2009 OBP, that’s reasonable, but coming up with some split to make it look worse is simply not meaningful.
@Jeff – the problem with that line of thinking, is that winning is what really drives attendance…
Granderson got bit by bad luck in 2009 (.275 BABIP). Even if he posts a similar like in 2010, who cares? He’s a younger version of the guy about 4 hours north on I-95 whom most people think is a very good signing by that team. Even on his down year, Granderson was good for a +3.4 marginal win season.
In summary, Granderson probably has too low a BA to be a prime-OBP leadoff hitter, but he’s still a very good hitter. Not his fault he’d be better served batting behind people. I don’t think he’d mind seeing his stolen base total drop from 20 to 15.
“Granderson hit .241 with a .319 OBP batting lead-off in 2009. That was the 2nd worse OBP for lead-off hitters in the AL with 400 Ab’s. Only BJ Upton’s was worse.
That’s good enough reason to put him on the trading block. The Tigers probably don’t want high salary guys who can’t get on base.
Polanco’s OBP batting 2nd was just .333, and that’s one reason why he was let go so easily.
That’s Moneyball.”
I do not think you understand Moneyball at all.
Yeah I just noticed he said that.
“Moneyball” != trading away a guy for a low-BABIP disaster year in which he was still a well above average player.
In fact, that’s pretty much the polar opposite of Moneyball.
Isn’t this the EXACT same situation as the Rays deal for Soriano? They each paid 7 million annually. The Tigers are giving up a draft pick, but the Rays gave up Chavez, so that’s basically even as well. They both have similar odds of making the playoffs – the Rays are a better team, but the Tigers player in a worse division.
Soriano’s been worth 2.5 WAR over the past three years, while Valverde’s been worth 2.9 WAR. Valverde is one year older.
As I recall, you defended the Rays acquisition of Soriano.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/the-marginal-value-of-a-win
So what exactly is the huge difference between the two moves that you defended one and desecrated the other?
And they didn’t dump Curtis Granderson for salary reasons – they got back Sherzer, Jackson and two solid relievers – all of whom are under cost control for the next 5-6 years and combined should provide tremendous surplus value.
Valverde gets an extra year, the Tigers give up a draft pick, and the Tigers had bigger holes elsewhere that could have been filled with the money.
I’d say those are 3 good reasons why the deals aren’t the same.
The draft pick is equal to value in Chavez. The extra year isn’t a big deal, given that the Tigers have a much bigger budget that the Rays. Name where else the Tigers could have improved in free agency?
If the Tigers had kept Granderson, Polanco and Jackson AND added Valverde, they would be is a similar position in the win curve as TB. The team as currently constructed, is not. The Granderson trade is not a win-now play, the Valverde move is. It doesn’t add up.
I guarantee you the Tigers will have a similar chance of making the playoffs this year, when the team projections come out, than the Rays.
The whole “Rays are a better team” part is why they might pay more for a marginal gain in wins. I think.
But the team will have massive amounts of money to spend next season so they will be a contender in just one year…
and the draft pick is no big deal for the Tigers since thier owner is CHEAP and will most likely be able to sing a similar talent in the sandwich round… Don’t forget they got Porcello at 27…
And the reason this site liked the Soriano move and not this move is that CAMERON HATES THE TIGERS… HE HAS NEVER WRITTEN ANYTHING POSITIVE ABOUT THEM… BUT HE LOVES THAT RAYS ALMOST AS MUCH AS SEATTLE!
I meant to say isnt cheap… and i hate to shout like that but Cameron has a huge bias against some teams and loves others… His commentary is the worst on the site IMO…
If you think your team can consistently produce talent like Porcello through the draft, then the value of the draft pick is even more, making this move even dumber. The only way the draft pick wouldn’t be worth as much is if the owner WAS cheap and thus made the team take lesser talent for slot money.
How ’bout the whole “the Tigers play in a FAR worse division” part, so they should have similar playoff odds despite being not as good of a team.
Cameron hates stupid teams. He used to hate Tampa. As soon as they stopped being stupid, he started writing good things about them. As soon as Detroit gets smart, he’ll “love” them too.
Plus, the Tigers were supposed to be shedding payroll as a result of the economic downturn of the auto industry. That’s why the Granderson trade made sense for them at the time…
Exactly. I think it’s pretty premature to say the club will have $50M to spend next year; what if payroll is cut to say, $75M in 2011?
The owner already said he doesn’t plan on cutting payroll…. even this year the payroll is staying the same…
The payroll is going to remain in the $100 – $115 mil range going forward… The guy has nothing else to spend his money on, is 80 years old, has 3 Stanley cup championships, cant spend more on the Wings cause of the cap, and wants to win a W.S. before he dies…
The Granderson trade made sense because they got back an excellent haul of young players. Granderson for Scherzer is a win for the Tigers. Jackson for Jackson + Shleretch + Coke is a win for the Tigers.
“So what exactly is the huge difference between the two moves that you defended one and desecrated the other?”
Because he is an increasingly shrill blowhard, parroting lazy sabr-influenced groupthink in the guise of rational analysis? A lot of the Cameron-bashing on here seems somewhat unfair but I kinda have to agree with you here. It’s difficult to see how the moves made by the Rays and the Tigers are so different. Valverde’s probably slightly better than Soriano, given his slightly superior health history (although it has to be said that CHONE has virtually identical projections for the two), and both Tampa and Detroit probably have a <25% chance of making the post-season this year.
Indeed, despite their differing loci on the win curve, I suspect the Tigers may even have a higher playoff probability than the Rays – the Rays have virtually no chance of overhauling the Yankees, so are competing against a HUGELY improved Boston for the wildcard (for which I assume whoever finishes second out of Texas/Seattle will be in the hunt, too). The Tigers just need to overhaul a Minnesota team which seems a long shot to greatly exceed 85 wins.
I also agree that the length of the deal is immaterial – a good closer is probably worth $7m/yr to a competitive team, so the second year doesn't really hurt. You could even argue that the second year is a benefit, because at least the Tigers get two years of production for their draft pick, whilst the Rays get only one for the decent prospect they coughed up for Soriano.
I really just don't see the difference between these deals. There's a serious logical issue here.
Might as well add Mike Gonzalez deal to this line of thinking: 2years/$12M type A. I’m not arguing that any of these deals are good. Yet, I don’t agree with the position that proven closers are cheap. I wouldn’t buy one myself, but if you want one, it’ll cost you about what the Tigers paid.
Yep, Gonzalez was a FAR worse deal than Valverde because the O’s have next-to-no chance at contending in the next two years, and Gonzo isn’t as good as Valverde due mainly to his pretty appalling health record (why give a guy two years anyway, when throughout his career he’s basically hardly ever strung two completely healthy years together?).
I’m not saying the Valverde deal was particularly good; on the contrary, I think the Tigers probably over-paid for a guy who didn’t likely have more than a couple of suitors, but this IS more or less what closers cost on the current market. The Braves paid the same AAV for a bigger injury risk (Wagner) who is also a type A. The Orioles paid similar money & a draft pick for Gonzalez. The Rays paid $7m and a prospect for Soriano. This is what closers cost, and it doesn’t seem unreasonable to suggest that the Tigers needed a reliable arm in their bullpen, and, of those teams, are arguably the closest to contention in 2010.
They’d have been better off getting Kiko Calero or Octavio Dotel or something, most likely, but then the same could probably be said for all the teams who hired type-A closers this year. The fact that even sabr-friendly teams like the Rays, and to a lesser extent the O’s and Braves, are doing so, perhaps suggests that we’re somewhat under-valuing relief aces using the WAR method, doesn’t it?
What the… ?
Jesse Chavez is worth the same as a first-round draft pick?
You can’t possibly be serious. Chavez is a replacement level relief pitcher. He has essentially no value.
And a draft pick has very limited value, if you’ll follow the link I posted several times in this thread. An average late first round draft pick has been worth about 5 million over the first 6 years. Jesse Chavez only has to be slightly above replacemetn level for the two to be even,
As a Tigers fan this move bothers me to know end. We have so many holes on our team and he chooses to spend 7 million a year and give up a draft pick for a guy that will play 60 innings the entire year? Couldn’t Dumbrowski have used that money on another bat or maybe even a 4th or 5th starter? The thing that bothers me the most is that he went on record a couple months ago as saying the bullpen is the strongest and deepest part of our anemic farm system. I mean the guy drafted relievers with his first 3 picks 2 years ago, then traded for 2 more in the offseason. You would think there would have to be somebody in the system that could close.
I’m with you, Matt. I would have loved to see them take a flyer on Ben Sheets or Erik Bedard, see if they couldn’t provide more bang for the buck.
Valverde, much like Kyle Farnsworth, has the qualities I enjoy in an opposing relief pitcher: he is both decorative (not as nice to look at as Farnsworth but still quite appealing) and functional (gives up runs to my team late in the game). The Tigers, however, ARE (one of) my team(s), and should not be paying him that kind of money to look pretty in the bullpen and blow saves for two years.
Ugh.
Just ugh.
Unless Valverde is the sole source of special, intergalactic career-reviving mojo that is guaranteed to rub off on Dontrelle Willis because they’re now on the same struggling team, this is an awful deal.
(and even if said clandestine space mojo exits, it’s still not a good deal, as those two bums are making 17 MILLION DOLLARS next year)
Ugh again.
Not happy about this. Not happy about it at all. If we had the money to go $7m on Valverde, we couldn’t go 9 or 10 on Cameron and out-bid the Red Sox? This team needs offense. Offense was the problem last year, and then they traded Granderson, which will only make the offense worse. I’m not high on Austin Jackson, but I think even the most optimistic scout/defender of him would not project him to do as well in 2010 as Granderson likely would have.
Banking on Carlos Guillen to stay healthy all year and Magglio Ordonez to play well for a full year at age 36 the year after he had one of the strangest baseball seasons I’ve ever seen (one of the worst regular OFs in the MLB through about July 24th, after which he was one of the best hitters in the MLB period all the way to season’s end), and a bounceback year offensively from Gerald Laird all the while carrying Adam Everett’s bat at Short…….that is way too many ifs, maybes, and holes.
With a ton of relief arms in the minors and acquired via trade and free agency this year, they still saw fit to hand over $7m to ANOTHER relief pitcher? I believe its time to open up the discussion on whether or not the Tigers are the Mets of the AL. And it pains me so deeply in my heart to actually take those words from my brain, where they’d been marinating for awhile, and put them in print.
I often disagree with the analysis just based on $/4M, thing … but in this case, I think it is very fitting.
I would say for the Tigers giving their loss of a high IP guy (Jackson), and relying heavily on two young guys (one with bad mechanics) that threw 170 IP last year, that their most important relievers are going to be the guys that pitch in the 6-8 innings, not the guy that comes in and closes out the game.
They also saw 150 bullpen IP leave the roster and are going to featur a lot of young relievers before they get to Valverde.
IMO, and this applies somewhat due to Scherzer being on the 09 DBacks … but the 09 AZ bullpen struggled mightily at times due to [1] being young, and [2] being heavily over-used, despite having an ace that pitched over 225 IP.
If the rest of the bullpen was established, and the 4 and 5 starters were capable, and a division title was within reach, then perhaps overpaying for an established closer makes sense.
But, IMO, I agree with DC that it doesn;t make sense for the 2010 tigers.
A veteran SP to go in the 4th or 5th slot that could pitch 170 IP or more, might have been a better use of the money.
This move isnt for 2010.. its for 2011 and 2012… This move appeases the fans and makes sure some still show up so they dont have to lower payroll next year..
This season the tigers can evaluate who can play and who cant out of thier young guys.. then next year with $50 mil to spend they can address any holes and be set for a playoff run after only 1 year of rebuilding…
Not every deal can be evaluated by only a WAR/$ perspective…
Even if you accept your argument, it’s based on if you believe they couldn’t have had Valverde for less than 14/2 years, which by the market is saying, you could have. Who was chasing Valverde so badly?
Wait… the local economy is cratered, the team choked away its shot at the easiest division in the AL, then traded away its allstar center fielder… and the thing that’s going to appease fans is spending too much for Jose freaking Valverde?
“Who was chasing Valverde so badly?”
I suspect you’re right that they could’ve probably got him for less, but the Cardinals were apparently interested (and, by coincidence, have about $7m left to spend for next season) and a couple of other teams were mentioned. As the only “proven closer” (and I think that tag still has some value to a lot of GMs) left on the market, I suspect there’d have been multiple bidders.
dumbroski should be fired…
I think this is a good deal for the Tigers. Even the worst hitting teams score 4 runs per game. If you have strong starting pitching like the Tigers do, then you’ll need a good set of relievers to compliment those starters to win those tight games. Also you don’t pay for the saves, you pay for limiting base runners and K’s. This is something that Valverde has done just as well or even better than KRod these past 3 seasons. KRod got a 3 year / $37M contract last year too. By those standards, either Valverde got low-balled by about $14 Million or the Mets were the stupid ones. Either way, the Tigers are a better team than they were Yesterday. Bravo to Detroit.
I do understand why some sabermetric folks think this Valverde deal is bad. I think It’s because the WAR value system greatly under-values pitchers compared to positional players. When you start homogenizing stats, you lose perspective of how a baseball game is broken down inning by inning. Having an experienced closer, who has a track record of pitching well in high leverage situations, is a very valuable commodity. Valverde’s value won’t disappear either. He’ll be a strong bargaining chip when and if they do decide to trade him. With the structure of the Tigers hitting and pitching he’s definitely going to see his share of save situations. $7 mil per year will look dirt cheap if he gets 50 saves.
Massive logic failure.
Getting a “less bad” contract than someone else does not make it a good one.
in your logic maybe, not mine.
Agree with the other dude…bad logic.
But do closers pitch the most high leverage innings? Not normally. Until a manager comes along and restores the relief ace role once filled by the Goose Gossage’s of the World, sticking your best reliever in this role — And paying him $7m — Seems awfully wasteful.
I guess it matters how you value Free Agents and how you think you can possibly sign them. Valverde was asking for $8 million a year, the Tigers offered $6M per year, and they meet in the middle. I don’t think a GM can negotiate better for a player they need and want.
Have you’ve seen the White Sox bullpen? It’s loaded with good arms. If the Tigers want to compete with them, they needed to get this deal done before it slipped though their fingers. $7M for the best FA closer available will turn out to be a pretty good deal when it’s all said and done.
Even Todd Jones made $24 M those 3 seasons he came back. Valverde is much better than Jones ever was. The Tigers got lucky that their wasn’t a huge market for Valverde.
They also won’t need to spend around $4 Million this year trying to sign that 19th draft pick. So really, Valverde will only cost them about $3 million this season if you take that into consideration.
You’re using another example of a bad contract being good because it’s not as bad as a previously poor one?
And worse, somehow you’re trying justify that losing a 1st round pick is a good thing because you don’t have to spend that money? If anything this works in the opposite direction.
The average 19th overall pick is going to supply roughly 3-4 WAR (or $12-$16 million) in total value over their cost-controlled years. You’ve effectively traded this production plus the $7 million per year for Valverde. That makes him more like $11 or $12 million per year, assuming he’s there for all three years, even higher if it’s just for two.
(according to my napkin math anyway)
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/are-first-round-draft-picks-overpaid/
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/6/3/896533/graph-of-the-day-draft-pick-value
This is a concept that has been covered numerous times on this site, in much more accurate detail, but the basic premise is the same. That draft pick has value which cannot be so easily disregarded.
Closers consistently have the highest leverage index among all relievers. Look it up! It’s on this very site.
Ahem…
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/7/20/950254/which-is-better-compensation
1. High leveraged innings aren’t only the 9th inning, which is almost exclusively where closers are used.
2. It’s only a good move if the closer is great at pitching in high leverage innings, which Valverde’s HR rate doesn’t suggest he is. If he can’t do it, then it’s an even worse move because he’s pitching high leverage innings.
3. Valverde’s value could easily disappear. Tiger’s fans should know this seeing Joel Zumaya’s value just disappear. Look at JJ Putz, look at Eric Gagne, it happens all the time. That’s why closers rarely get more than 3 years.
4. The market in the last 2 years has significantly dropped in price, which is another reason you can’t cite rates from 3-4 years ago. Also the KRod deal looks horrible now.
5. GM can totally negotiate better when it’s a buyer’s market. The problem is he was too attached to Valverde. There were other values out there.
6. The idea that the move only costs them $3M this season is terrible. No, it costs you more because the asset you could have paid $4 (or whatever number you decide on) would provide value as well. Considering the Tigers recent success with drafting Porcello, I would be outraged by giving up draft picks.
How many top picks does a team need? The Tigers already have 2 supplement picks from Rodney and Lyon.
What’s the point of having top prospects like Austin Jackson and Scott Sizemore if your afraid to play them? They got to let the rookies play sooner or later. Unfortunately it’s later for these 2 guys. IMO, both were MLB ready last May.
How many top prospects does a team need? The Tigers farm system is deep enough for now. There won’t be enough room in the rotation for Turner, Crosby, and Oliver if they plan on keeping Verlander, Porcello, and Scherzer.
You can only milk value from your prospects up to a certain point. This is something most saber folks don’t understand. It’s common sense for baseball people though.
They signed Porcello with the 27th pick because they will go over slot, which means that they can get talent in the sandwich round just as good as they could at pick 19….
And how do you know who was also in on Valverde??? you have inside source???
Half of free agent signings are never reported on before they happen… look at Laroche and Arizona today… You knew that AZ was bidding on him???
I think that, given we have NO idea what other offers were on the table, we should defer to the team and assume that they were actually competing against other teams.
How could you really say that the market has dropped significantly? Teams always overpay for closers. The Astros gave Lyon 15 million, the Angels gave Rodney close to what the Tigers gave Valverde per season and both of them aren’t as good as him and in Rodney’s case isn’t even guaranteed to be the closer. It was also brought up about the Rays and Soriano who got roughly the same annually as Valverde.
So I really don’t see how he could’ve been had for much cheaper because he was probably the highest rated reliever left on the market and there was atleast one other team that needed a closer(Arizona) and who knows how many that would’ve wanted him as a setup guy. Not that it is really an excuse for Dombrowski because ultimately he was one that made the decision but it has shown time and time again that GMs value closers and pay them alot more than what their WAR are worth. So if he wanted an elite closer(who he must think is one) you’re going to have to dish out 7 million or so a year to get one.
My problem with it though is not giving up the draft pick or even the contract because like I said it’s right on par with most other closers, but my problem is that he felt the need to go after a closer in the first place. In my opinion that is the position that you fill last after you are satisfied with the rest of your team. It basically should be a luxury. It doesn’t do you much good to have a great closer if you can never get the lead by the 9th inning anyway. With the lineup the Tigers have on paper I think he could’ve atleast signed another bat or 2 instead then worried about the bullpen.
Point 4 about the market dropping in recent years is right. Yet, the Valverde contract is right in step with the market drop. Here are closers signed last offseason:
(closer – ’10 salary/number of years of contract w/ + for added option year)
Krod – 11.5M/3+
Lidge – $11.5M/3+
Wood – $10.5M/2+
Fuentes – $9M/2+
Hoffman – $8M/2
And here are closers signed so far this offseason:
Valverde – $7M/2+
Wagner – $7M/1+
Gonzalez – $6M/2
Soriano – $7.5M/1
Lyon – $5M/3
Capps – $4M/1
I’ll concede the argument the Tigers should spend their scarce resources in other areas/no team should pay closers because it’s an over-rated role to begin with. But, to say the Tigers overpaid for Valverde or could have had him cheaper (not saying they should have signed him to begin with again) is not accurate. He got what the market is paying closers.
Um, what?
Not only will you be paying Valverde $14,000,000, but you lose the 19th pick in the draft (another $5,200,000 of value). On what planet is this a good contract?
Linuxit is either a troll, or Brian Sabean posting under an alias.
Hopefully a troll, because I can’t see any other way for a person to think using a terrible contract as a justification example for another terrible contract holds up.
Soriano is different. He was arb-eligible and signed for 1 year at 7.25 million. The return for him was Chavez who is worth less than the 19th overall pick. The Rays are in compete-now mode, whereas the Tigers’ moves this off-season have been about building for the longer run. Plus Soriano’s projections are uniformly better.
No, it wasn’t. Chavez was a cost controlled major league quality reliever. That isn’t great, but it’s worth about as much as a 19th overall draft pick.
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/7/20/950254/which-is-better-compensation
“Plus Soriano’s projections are uniformly better.” CHONE projects Soriano for a 3.67 FIP and Valverde for a 3.87 FIP. Bill James projects Soriano for a 3.20 FIP and Valverde for a 3.43 FIP.
A difference of ~.20 points of FIP might be “universally better” in your book; however, it’s not a huge difference in real world value – especially given that Valverde has a much cleaner track record of health.
Also, CHONE projects both Soriano and Valverde to be +7 runs next year, mainly due to the small difference in likely innings pitched. I think it’s fair to say they’re pretty much the same player.
Chavez is replacement level.
He has no value. Any team can look through the list of minor league free agents and sign someone for a couple hundred thou a year who will be as good as Jesse Chavez. “Controlling” him is not helpful, because there’s no point.
“How do you justify dumping Curtis Granderson to save money, and then use that money (and more!) to sign a flyball reliever with command problems who has never pitched in the AL?”
Not saying it is a good contract or that they should have traded Granderson, but just looking at Valverde as a pitcher, shouldn’t a flyball pitcher be helped a bit by Comerica? It was 18th in HR park factor in 2009, <1. And he is going to the AL Central, not the AL East. Shouldn't his performance benefit a bit from the park?
That kind of money for a closer not named Mariano Rivera is a overpay.
Now, shedding Granderson’s salary looks like a waste…
Maybe someone’s looking into joining “the contest”
ALL YOU PEOPLE WHO LISTEN TO THE NATIONAL WRITERS LIKE MOROSI THAT THE REASON THE TIGERS TRADED GRANDY WAS $$$ ARE SHEEP…
THE TIGERS OWNER HAS STATED OVER AND OVER HE IS NOT CUTTING PAYROLL YET THE NATIONAL MEDIA CANT GET OVER THE FACT THAT HE ISNT AND OUR ECONOMY IS BAD….
THEY TRADED GRANDY SO THAT IN THE FUTURE THEY COULD SPEND MONEY ON POSTIONS BESIDES CF WHERE THEY NOW WILL HAVE SOMEONE ON THE CHEAP…
INSTEAD OF PAYING GRANDY $10 IN 2012 THEY CAN PAY JACKSON $1 AND SPEND $9 ON ANOTHER POSTION…
NOT SO THEY COULD SAVE 5 BUCKS THIS OFFSEASON….
There is still a massive problem with your “logic” here. If the Tigers should be playing guys like Sizemore and Jackson in order to develop them for the future, shouldn’t that same thinking be applied to the mass of extremely young and talented relievers the Tigers have drafted over the past few years?
Also, you are severely confused if you think that it’s better to spend 7M on a RP than 10M on a CF. That CF will be more valuable to his team’s success almost every time.
My lord Scott, it wasn’t like they chose to spend 7 million on Valverde over 10 million on Granderson. They chose to spend 7 million on Valverde and nothing on Jackson, Sherzer, Schlerith and Coke over 10 million on Granderosn and 5 million on Jackson.
Of course they didn’t. But that doesn’t change the fact that they just spent 7/year for two years on a RP that is perceived to be a hell of a lot better than he is. And you can’t say that they are spending nothing on the guys we got in exchange for Granderson/Jackson. Yes, those players are cheap and locked up for long. But you can’t tell me that Valverde is a good use of 7M. There are plenty of other options that would have been immensely better than this.
First off, whoa all caps.
Second off, cool, they save $9 million. They just blew $7 million of it on a mediocre reliever when they could’ve spent it on someone like Orlando Hudson, or a buy low on someone like Brian Giles and see if he can rebound at all.
Instead of that, though, the Tigers went and overpaid Valverde. That makes no sense.
I’m not saying this is a particularily good deal for the Tigers. Going by projected WAR, they overpaid, and even if you think that closers are undervalued by WAR (which I do) they still probably overpaid a little bit.
My question is for Dave. Why would you go so far out of your way to defend the Rays acquisition of Soriano, who projects similarly to Valverde, required giving up a major league cost controlled reliever and cost the same AAV, and condemn this deal? You can’t have it both ways. The two deals are *very* similar and saying that one is fine, while the other is horrible is purely biased.
I wish, before commenting on each deal, you would lay out the exact numbers of the contract, show the players projection (and not just a cherrypicked stat like BB/9), and look at similar deals as well. Sabermetrics is about finding the truth in baseball, and you’re not helping that cause by advancing a biased opinion.
Well, because the Rays have a sabermetrically inclined GM and the Tigers have a scouting 1st GM, which he cant stand…
Do I think one is better than the other also? yes… ill take the ###’s over the eyes and hunches anyday…
But will I only defend ### guys while ripping anyone else? NO!!!!
Hell, Dave has already gave Jack Z. a place at the right hand side of Beane’s alter and the guy hasnt won a thing yet.. He has been a GM one year but is already in the top 5 in the game according to Dave…
The rest of the writers on this site are fair, but Daves bias is getting out of hand… just look at his organizational rankings… Top 15 = saber GM’s… bottom 15 = scouts…
I think he had Seattle in the top 10??? thats just ridicuous
The difference is that Soriano is signed to a one year deal, and cost them Jesse Chavez – who’s an OK reliever, but nothing special. Solid K rate, poor BB rate, and flyballs which lead to HRs. Course, they got him for a guy they were going to non-tender. Oh, and more importantly, they didn’t give up a first round pick. Which is the bigger problem with this deal – the Tigers gave up the 19th overall pick in the draft. Giving that up is a lot worse than giving up a generic RP like Chavez.
There’s also the fact that the Rays are a better team than the Tigers, and are at the point on the win curve where the marginal win is better for the Rays.
Jesse Chavez projects to be a 0-.5 WAR, and he’s cost controlled for the next few years. That’s not great, but it has value. Given that it’s been shown that the average surplus value of a mid to late first round draft pick is around 5 million, I would say that Chavez and the 19th pick are very comparable.
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/7/20/950254/which-is-better-compensation
Yes the Rays are a much better team then the Tigers… they also play in the toughest division in baseball by far. The Tigers are probably only an 80-85 win team as of now, but they play in one of the weakest divisions in baseball (seriously, who in that division projects to be much better than the Tigers?). I’m going to bold this becasue this is important.
The marginal value of a win is a function of playoff odds, NOT of team quality
When the team projections come out, and someone runs a Monte Carlo sim on the league, I think we’ll find that the Rays and Tigers have *very* similar playoff odds this year.
Really, the only major differences in the deal is that Valverde is signed to a 2 year contract vs. a 1 year contract for Soriano. Given that A) the Tigers have about twice the payroll as the Rays, and B) 7 million next year is going to buy a lot less than 7 million this year (probably), I don’t think that’s a big deal.
Jesse Chavez is waiver bait. Your opinion of his value is crazy.
This really isn’t that hard.
1. Soriano is better
2. Chavez isn’t worth anything close to the #19 pick in the draft.
3. The Rays are only paying for 2010.
You’re bending the facts to a ridiculous degree. It’s borderline trolling.
Are you serious?
1) Soriano is better? Taking a 3 year weighted average of their FIP WAR you get 0.91 for Valverde vs. .96 for Soriano. Using Statcorner’s tRA WAR, you get 1.80 for Valverde and 1.65 for Soriano. CHONE projects an FIP .20 points higher for Valverde, but also 15 more innings. Valverde is one year older than Soriano. In my book, the two are about as even as it gets.
2) Chavez projects for slightly above replacement level going forward. He’s also under team control for the next 5 years. He’s not good at all, and has very little value… but he does have value.
If you’ll follow this link, a 19th pick in the draft is typically worth around 5 million over the first 6 years.
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/7/20/950254/which-is-better-compensation
Is that more than Chavez projects to add? Yes, but not significantly, and it definitely doesn’t change the whole landscape of the deal.
3) I’m not sure how the fact that the Rays are only paying for one year skews the picture. The AAV is the same and if you assume the market for wins this year is depressed, it should bounce up a bit next year, making the inflation adjusted value of the contract less for the Tigers next year. Also, the fact that the Rays have a *much* tighter budget than the Tigers means that Soriano will be taking up a much larger percentage of their payroll.
Saying that I am trolling is ridiculous. The facts are that the two deals are very, very similar. The two pitchers are basically equal going forward, the contracts are similar, the playoff curves of each team are going to be similar. If you are saying that the value of a draft pick – the value of Chavez is the reason that the Soriano deal was good while the Valverde deal was terrible, that’s a very weak defense.
The other option is bias. Bias isn’t a bad thing actually when judging free agent contracts, in which the valuation of a player is somewhat vague. If a team has a history of good scouting and properly judging the value of players, they are more likely to be making a good deal than a team that has demonstrated poor valuation judgment. However, in this case, the valuations of Valverde and Soriano are NOT vague. It’s impossible to make a case that one is much better than the other. Therefore the bias is a hindered to your analysis.
1) Soriano is better? Taking a 3 year weighted average of their FIP WAR you get 0.91 for Valverde vs. .96 for Soriano. Using Statcorner’s tRA WAR, you get 1.80 for Valverde and 1.65 for Soriano. CHONE projects an FIP .20 points higher for Valverde, but also 15 more innings. Valverde is one year older than Soriano. In my book, the two are about as even as it gets.
This is, of course, exactly what I’m talking about when I say you’re bending the truth to an absurd degree.
Soriano threw 14 innings in 2008. Yet, you don’t care about that, apparently, happy to do a three year non-weighted average WAR and completely hide the fact that Soriano has been significantly better than Valverde on a per innings pitched basis.
This is the kind of argument someone makes when they’re made their mind up and have decided to defend a position. It’s not intellectually honest.
2) Chavez projects for slightly above replacement level going forward. He’s also under team control for the next 5 years. He’s not good at all, and has very little value… but he does have value.
Seriously, go look at what relief pitchers of this quality are signing for in the market. The Pirates replaced Jesse Chavez by signing DJ Carrasco to a minor league deal. Carrasco is significantly better than Chavez. There is no value here. You can talk about cost controlled years all you want, but they don’t matter. He’s a league minimum player, barely hanging on to his job in the big leagues by a thread. He has no real value. That’s why he’s already been traded twice this winter in salary dump deals.
And, hey, thanks for the patronizing attempts to teach me what a draft pick is worth. I’ve certainly never seen those studies before…
2) I’m not sure how the fact that the Rays are only paying for one year skews the picture.
That’s a major problem in your analytical process, then. It’s a pretty basic thing to understand that guaranteeing multiple years to relief pitchers is extremely risky, given their wildly variant performances from year to year.
Put simply – your analysis of Chavez’s value is wrong, your analysis of Soriano and Valverde is wrong, and your analysis of the value of short term and long term deals for relief pitchers is wrong.
Sorry, but you don’t have any ground to stand on and claim bias – not when you’re this wrong about everything.
1) So injury risk isn’t part of player valuation? The fact that Soriano only through 12 innings in 08 doesn’t mean he is more likely to be injured in the future? At any rate, I quoted CHONE’s projections for next year, which project a slightly lower FIP for Soriano and slightly more innings pitched for Valverde. That makes, at least according to CHONE’s estimates, the two pitchers practically even going forward.
2) Patronizing? If you think that me saying, “according to this study…” is patronizing then… well, okay then.
At any rate, can you refute the findings in the study I linked to? As it stands, a 19th pick in the draft is going to be worth about 5 million… over 6 years. That is not a significant factor in the differences in the two deals, especially when you consider the fact that Chavez’ surplus value is positive going forward.
3) A 1 year deal vs. a 4 year deal with increasing AAV relative to inflation is a big difference. A 1 year deal vs. a 2 year deal, with decreasing AAV relative to inflation is not a big difference.
I don’t see how you can say my valuation of Valverde and Soriano is wrong. Sorianio has been better on a rate basis, Valverde has less of an injury risk. CHONE projects the two to be even going forward. Furthermore, for all of your assertions that the value of draft pick is FAR better than the value of Chavez, the historical data simply doesn’t back this up. Furthermore, a 2 year deal with a lower inflation adjusted AAV than a 1 year deal is going to come out exactly even when you factor in possible age injury related decline.
In your article about Soriano, you essentially wrote that it was okay for the Rays to overpay for him because he filled a position of need and they were in the sweet spot of the playoff curve. The Tigers are in the exact same position!
And I did use a weighted average.
I have to go with Cameron on this one.
- Valverde has posted .4 WAR more than Soriano in the last 3 years. Woo party. In terms of per inning, they project out to about the same WAR, which begs two more points
- Soriano is a one year contract. If he sucks, it doesn’t matter. If he doesn’t suck, then the Rays can offer arb and if he doesn’t accept, they get draft picks. Valverde is a 2 year contract. If he sucks, he’s a 2 year burden.
- Soriano was acquired for a nobody. Valverde’s acquisition is going to cost the Tigers their first round pick.
I don’t love having Soriano on the roster for $7.25 million, especially for a smaller market club, but he’s way more justifiable a roster asset than Valverde is. Pretty much the only hope the Tigers has is that he racks up enough saves and is a type A FA again after 2011. And given that he’s moving from the NL to the AL, and that he’s on the wrong side of 30, I’m not putting my money on it.
1) So you agree that the two are even going forward.
2) The two year deal is not a huge risk. If Valverde fails next year, than yes, it’s bad – but the odds of him doing that aren’t great. The extra year adds more risk, but it isn’t a huge deal.
3) Jesse Chavez projects to be a slightly above replacement level reliever over the next 5 years, in which he will be cost controlled. A 19th pick in the draft has historically been worth about 5 million over the first 6 years of the contract. There is simply not a big difference in the value of the two.
Fire Dave Dombrowski.
This move wouldn’t be so bad if the incompetent fool had offered Polanco arbitration and received compensatory picks for hin signing elsewhere.
But that, combined with the other moves this offseason that make it clear this team is in rebuilding mode, make this move perplexing at best.
I feel bad for Mike Ilitch. He’s given his GM a top 5 payroll to work with. It’s just his GM is a old school dinosaur who spends money in the worst ways possible.
Letting Polanco walk w/out offering arb
Trading Granderson for a cash dump (even though he got decent return, thanks D-backs)
Then…sign Valverde for 7 mil a year?
Man I am happy Theo Epstein is my GM.
This contract may make sense if you look at it from the perspective of the Tigers. It’s unlikely that the Tigers were simply paying for another reliever, but someone that they will probably slate in as their closer, and as a result gave him a salary substantially over the market value. The Tigers could have done better with $7 million/year and their 2010 first round draft pick.
From the looks of it though, it’s more likely that the Tigers will end up in a closer by committee situation, because of Valverde’s lack of experience pitching in the AL (I still remember when the Yankees signed LaTroy Hawkins . . . oy vey) as well as his poor control and tendency to give up the long ball.
Regardless, it should be interesting with the number of live arms in the Tigers bullpen as noted earlier.
Look, there seem to be a lot of strong feelings in the comments section.
I think we should ch-ch-check out what Mr. Jon Heyman (a man whose opinions we can all agree are reasonable) has to say on Twitter about this deal:
valverde upgrades #tigers pen. $14 million for 2 years makes sense in this environment. 1.18 lifetime WHIP. big upgrade.
There you have it. 1.18 lifetime WHIP. Can we now all agree it’s a good deal?
1) His lifetime WHIP is 1.168, I have no idea where Heyman got 1.18 from.
2) We’re all very proud of Valverde for having about the same WHIP as Rod Beck. Let’s all get a slow clap going.
Rod Beck. Three time All-Star, two time Dusty Baker favorite. What’s not to love?
And what “environment” does it make sense to shell out $7 mil a year to Valverde when they could’ve gone after someone like Orlando Hudson, who they probably could’ve gotten for the same or less money, not lost a draft pick, and see him provide 2-3 marginal wins a season.
The Tigers have a prospect they think is ready to take over at 2B in Scott Sizemore, so they were never in the market for a 2B. That was also one of the main reasons that Polanco was not offered arbitration. They probably feared that he would accept and block the development of Sizemore at 2B.
For all I know, this may be an incredibly stupid question, but here goes:
What’s the deal with Jose Arredondo? He’s 25 and had a strong 2008. Is there some reason the Tigers weren’t interested in a one-time Angels closer prospect for (inevitably) under $7 million per?
I mean, couldn’t they have signed Arredondo and a bunch of useful but unspectacular leftovers (David Weathers, Kevin Gregg, Will Ohman, whatever…) for the same money?
I dunno. Is Arredondo actually 50 years old or something?
Isn’t he having Tommy John surgery this year or something?
I recall him being basically out for 2010 and that that’s why the Angels released him.
The Tigers did get 2 supplemental picks for Rodney and Lyon that will combine to provide the same value that the 1st round pick would have. So, that does kind of soften the blow of losing that pick. Valverde also tends to pitch extremely well with men on base and has done so his whole career. So, his WAR does underrate him a bit. Over at Rally’s Baseball Projection site, he’s been worth an average of 1.86 wins the last 3 seasons. They are basically paying him to be a 1.5 win closer. Whether that makes it a good move or not is still debatable, though.
But, I see it mentioned often that the Tigers traded Granderson just to save money. There is really no evidence of that and this signing just further cements that. Valverde is making more money next season than Granderson would have. Dombrowski traded Granderson and Jackson b/c he wanted to, and not b/c of a dire financial situation. I’m not sure if that was the right baseball decision, but they clearly wanted to trade those players. If the Tigers were simply in penny pinching mode, then they never would have let Magglio Ordonez hit his incentives, or signed Valverde and they could have non tendered a couple players. But, they didn’t. This has been a topic that has been pushed by the Detroit media and the evidence for the “fire sale” talk is slim to none.
How does it “soften the blow”?
One way, the team would have a first-rounder and two supplementals.
The other way, the team would have two supplementals.
[Checks detailed spreadsheet]
Yep, looks like the Tigers are still losing a first-round draft pick. Unless you somehow think that having more draft picks makes the later picks less valuable (a weird supposition, at best), there’s no “softening” here.
The 2 supplemental picks combine to have the same value as the 1st round pick. So, the Tigers broke even with draft picks this off season. Sure, having the 1st round pick would be better long term but they also are not that far off from contending for the division title and wanted a closer to replace Fernando Rodney. The 2 picks they got for Lyon and Rodney allowed them the opportunity to upgrade their bullpen with the Valverde signing.
Why would anyone use WAR for relievers? Fangraphs’ WAR says Jhonny Peralta has been more valuable than Mariano Rivera over the past 3 seasons. Use REW or WPA/LI for chrissakes.
At any rate, if you believe closers are overrated, this is a terrible deal. But if you don’t, this is actually well under-market. Soriano is a good comp as far as value….he got $7.25M in 3rd-year arbitration, which translates to what, $9M open market? And as far as the 2 years, if you’re giving up a prospect or a pick, and you’re getting him under market value, wouldn’t you rather lock that up for 2 years instead of just 1?
I didn’t realize Jhonny Peralta was a pitcher.
wtf in my post insinuated that? you can’t even be sarcastic correctly.
would you feel better if i said jason marquis or paul maholm?
That you didn’t get it doesn’t make it wrong.
i didn’t realize blue circles were leveraged by the green leprechauns.
just because you don’t get that doesn’t make it wrong.
1) Both Peralta and Rivera have been worth 7.3 marginal wins since 2007
2) You mean a neutral defender (moderately bad at a tough position) with an average bat that gives you 650 PA a season having the same value as a pitcher who gives you 70 IP shows that a counting system is broken? Infallable logic.
It sounds like you’re being sarcastic but I’m not the claiming everyone should be worth X $ per WAR or it’s a bad deal.
No one thinks that, the marginal value of a player to a team varies tremendously, depending on how many extra wins can be expected and who they replace (example, a 3 marginal win SS has much more value to a currently 89 win team with no SS than a 99 win team w/ a bench level / 1 marginal win SS). And of course, the Yankees can pay a bit more for a win than other teams.
That being said, how much does a closer actually impact a game? I understand not liking WAR, but then you have WPA overvaluing a closer (anyone think Papelbon is the 3rd most valuable pitcher in MLB? Anyone?).
So let’s use WPA/LI as you asked for. Rivera: 1.61. That’s good.
Scott Baker was a 1.5, so fair comp? Made $750K in 2009.
Matt Guerrier is also close. $950K.
Brandon Lyon made less than 1/4th what Rivera did in 2009. Big WPA gap, but almost the same in WPA/LI (so yeah, shows Lyon sucked ass in big situations, but still).
Obviously the problem with WAR is that the sample sizes every year on RP’s is too small for it to have any real predictive value. But you can usually feel pretty sure that investing a lot of money in a closer who’s seen his K/9 drop every year since that ridiculously unlucky 2006 is risky, at best.
So actually, I do agree with you that WAR is a weak way to judge a reliever. But for a totally different reason than what you said, because the fact is, that pretty much IS how much value a reliever is contributing to his team. Sometimes you score with a Joe Nathan. Most of the time, though, you don’t.
thanks for explaining where you’re coming from. i’ll just say that
a) if you look at the past 3 years or longer you see a strong correlation between WPA/LI and the closers generally considered ‘elite.’ i.e., MO wipes the floor with Guerrier and Lyon.
b) Another problem, IMO, with WAR is that the replacement level for relievers is higher than that for a starter. I understand why that was done…..easier to pitch an inning or two than to pace yourself for 100 pitches…..but it just seems like starters are getting a double advantage…..it’s easy for a decent pitcher to rack up credit for being above replacement when he pitches more innings, and it’s a lower threshold.
c) And of course the 3rd problem is pitchers as a whole, by definition, get a fraction of the total WAR as hitters. Basically the entire WAR system of fangraphs is set up against relievers (and especially NL relievers).
d) WPA shouldn’t be used to determine how good a pitcher is, but it’s a good measure of what his value to the team was. If you look at wPA as a product of WPA/LI and LI, and note that back-end relievers pitch at 50% or so greater leverage than average, you will note that the bonus (or most of it) that closers seem to get in the translation from WPA/LI to WPA is real w.r.t. the team, even if they didn’t generate the leverage themselves. And they only get it if they pitch above average. It’s rare that you get to see a truly awful closer pitch a whole season because he will get pulled before he gets the chance, but that happened with Brad Lidge in 2009. -1/5 WPA/LI translated to -4.5 WPA.
e) Yes, elite closers are prevelant on the WPA leaderboard, but they also have ERAs below 2.00.
So, in summary, that’s why I think closers are underrated here :-)
Man, the Tigers FO should sacrfice some baby pandas to the Hockey Gods, because only the Red WIngs winning back the Cup will quell angry Detroit sports fans after this fiasco. On the Dumb Signings Scale this pushes the needle past the “Ralph Wiggum On Mescaline” mark.
Not to keep bringing up the same points, but …
[1] in ’09 Verlander threw 40 more IP than he ever has.
[2] Jackson threw 214 IP, and was traded.
[3] Lyons and Rodney combined for 150 IP, and were traded.
[4] Porcello threw 170 IP.
[5] DET had 2 SP’s throw over 200 IP, 1 at 170, and no other P over 150 IP.
[6] New acquire Scherzer threw 170 IP last year, which is 70 more than his previous best.
[7] Zumaya may play Guitar Hero or help his parents move again.
In short, they are going to need pitching relief like Johnny Damon needs a team. They are going to have subpoar quality as 4th and 5th starters, and a ton of young relievers who aren’t used to the MLB pressure/workload. Like I said earlier, I followed the 2009 AZ bullpen closely, and the 2 situations are looking very similar. I would caution DET fans to get used to inconsistency, falling in/out of love with relievers based on what happened last night, and an endless array of call ups & send downs, trying to find who can pitch in relief or at the end of the rotation … at least for this week.
By the end of the year, DET relievers may be able to tie their shoes without beinding over.
Bobby jenks just signed 1y deal with the CWS for $7M.
So, either …
[1] The market for established closers is right about $7M/y
or
[2] All these GMs are idiots and don;t know what FG says the market is.
——————————
Seriusly, at this point shouldn’t FG realize WAR is not how to measure closers, and FG should adjust their market values to match reality, rather than to just go around saying that every team is over-paying for a closer.
It’s clear that MLB baseball views closers differently than does the spreadsheet/sabermetric community.
FG can continue saying that the market for closer is NOT 7M/y, or we can just change to what is obvious, that evidently it is.
IMO, it causes the site to lose credibility when we keep saying there’s no amrket for guys at 7M/y as closers, and then see multiple teams (within the last week even) pay closers 7M/y. Let’s just say it’s market value whether it’s how the spreadsheet computes it or not.
Please don’t label all sabermetrics under the same blanket.
Not to mention just because teams keep doing it, doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
Sure you’ll occasionally get a Mariano Rivera or Joe Nathan that do merit a $8MM+ / year deal, but most of the time, there’s just not enough innings to justify giving an otherwise average-ish pitcher that much money.
Remember when Tim Wakefield was the Red Sox closer? In his career out of the pen, he has a 1.28 WHIP. He’s capable to start (obviously) and has never earned more than $4.67 million in a season (I cannot believe he’s never signed for more somewhere).
So what makes Valverde more valuable, than, say, Matt Thornton or Nick Masset?
And if you look it up, I’ll use the Red Sox, for example. Out of 1,425 innings, the Red Sox were shut out in 965 of them. That means an average MLB pitcher converts a 1 run lead in the 9th about 67.72% of the time vs. one of the best offenses in MLB. With a 3 run lead, the average one would convert 93% of the time vs. the Red Sox. Not to mention almost every team has a guy in the high minors they can slot into the bullpen on a whim for a stretch run.
So why spend so much money on a “bona fide” closer? Why not use that money to fill an actual hole? Since it’s obvious the Tigers want to compete now (else they wouldn’t burn so much on a closer), then couldn’t this money have been spent more wisely on someone like Brian Giles? Or Kiko Calero if they insisted on bullpen help? Probably could’ve gotten Jim Thome on a low money w/ incentive contract as well. It just seems like it’s better to spend money to help your team for 8 1/2 innings every game over helping it for 1/2 an inning.
And on Jenks:
1) We all know Ken Williams is an oddball. He does weird moves, he does good moves. And it’s not like Jenks hasn’t performed in the past
2) It’s a one year arb buyout. And they didn’t lose a draft pick to keep him.
$7.5MM on Jenks is probably too much. But the Tigers cost themselves a 1st round talent to bring in a closer that’s never pitched in the AL. Risky much?
VEP,
Gimme a break.
JoeR,
c’mon, you have a leverage stat at your disposal on this very site. Closers and back-end guys pitch in 50-75% higher leverage situations than average.
The fact remains, if Valverde has a 1 WPA/LI, and if he pitches in typical leveraged situations, and if the closer he replacing is average, and if the odd man out in the bullpen is below average (chaining effect), the Tigers should be between 1.5 and 2 WPA better for 2010. Maybe they should have spent money elsewhere, and maybe they still will (Valverde was the last good closer candidate, there are still a few hitting options left), but 2 wins is 2 wins. I don’t see why, at the end of the season, a WAR win is more pertinent than a WPA win. Personally, I’ll take the 2 wins above average over the 2 wins above replacement.
Im sorry, I just read the comment above and it truley made me laugh…lol.
It is very funny to go back and read this trashing of Valverde almost 1/2 way thru the season. He is now one of the top closers in the AL and looks very reasonably priced. Jackson’s defense is superior to Granderson’s (who was no slouch) and he is hitting like the spark plug Grandy was before he fell in love with the long ball. Grandy is playing in NYY like he did last year in DET. Edwin Jackson has shown that the 1st half of last season was a fluke. Phil Coke is an iron man in the bullpen pitching full innings setting up Zumaya & Valverde. Sherzer, once he fixed his arm slot, has shown much more talent than E Jackson, but has been inconsistent and Schlereth is still in the minors. Nobody misses Rodney or Lyon. You can argue if Polanco should have been offered arbitration but the Phillies are going to hate that contract in the final year. Damon has played reasonably well and is only signed for this year. In total, a very good offseason for Dombrowski.
Fangraphs is known for these articles where when looking back, you just laugh. They have one guy who loves to rip on Buccholz, and he even listed him in a fallen prospect article without mentioning Joba Chamberlain. They also said Detroit screwed up when trading an aging center fielder who struck out as much as Ryan Howard. How has Joba looked this season? Would you rather have Coke or Joba at this time? Hahahahaha.
As someone who shares your name, I have to say I’m pleased – you’re usually spot on. I read your stuff regularly; and several of my friends think that I’m you – or is that you’re me?
Anyway, not sure if you check this one -but you have to admit – you were way off on this one. Valverde hasn’t been scored upon since April 7th, a stretch of 24 appearances. He’s got a 0.36 ERA over that time, with a .135 BABIP.
As a born and raised Detroiter, I’d pay $7MM for that – or more…