Archive for January, 2014

Good Pitching, For Cheap

Masahiro Tanaka has the attention of nearly every team in Major League Baseball right now. Not every team is going to bid on the Rakuten’s ace, but interest in him is so high that it has essentially shut down the market for other starting pitchers as well, as pitchers like Ervin Santana, Matt Garza, and Ubaldo Jimenez are waiting until Tanaka signs so they can be market themselves as a Plan B to the teams who fell short in the bidding war. The trickle down effect has basically pushed back the market for starting pitchers, so even though we’re only a few months from spring training, there are still some interesting pitchers left unsigned. And the good news is, there are even some pitchers who won’t break the bank. Even teams that are dealing with tight budgets could still add a quality arm by looking beyond Tanaka and the rest.

Here are three pitchers who are likely going to sign for a fraction of what the top pitchers get this winter, but could be perfect fits for teams looking to add quality innings without spending an arm and a leg.

Chris Capuano, LHP

Perfect Fit: Seattle Mariners

Here’s a fun fact for you: Capuano and teammate Zack Greinke posted identical 3.22 K/BB ratios as starting pitchers in 2013. Two other starting pitchers also posted a 3.22 K/BB as starters last year: Jose Fernandez and Mat Latos. Madison Bumgarner was just behind them, at 3.21, while supposed big time free agent Matt Garza checked in at 3.24. Pitching isn’t just walks and strikeouts, but if you can get batters to swing and miss while throwing strikes, you’re most of the way to being an effective hurler, and that’s exactly what Capuano did last year. And it was actually the third consecutive year in which Capuano ran a K/BB ratio over 3.00. From 2011 to 2013, Capuano posted the 29th best K/BB ratio of any regular starting pitcher in baseball.

Because he’s given up some hits on contact and hasn’t done a very good job of stranding runners, his ERA doesn’t match up with his underlying numbers, but those variables bounce around a lot, and with a little bit better luck, Capuano could easily be a quality mid-rotation starter again in 2014. And for a team like Seattle in need of multiple starters while also planning a big offer for Tanaka, a cheap effective hurler like Capuano could be just what the doctor ordered. After all, Dan Szymborski called Erasmo Ramirez the “worst #3 starter in baseball” earlier this week, and even signing Tanaka wouldn’t fix their depth problem.

Toss in the fact that Safeco Field is still a pretty decent place for pitchers, even after they moved in the fences last year, and Seattle should be an appealing destination for Capuano. While the marine layer on the west coast didn’t exactly save his 2013 ERA, these pitch-to-contact strike-throwers do best in west coast parks where the ball doesn’t carry as well in the summer, and no west coast team needs a cheap effective starter as much as the Mariners. Even if they sign Tanaka, Capuano should still be in their sights, but they definitely shouldn’t let Capuano get away while they ponder a bid for Rakuten’s ace.

Jerome Williams, RHP

Perfect Fit: Houston Astros

The Astros already threw $30 million at Scott Feldman to give their rotation a boost, but Williams would also be a good addition to a team that doesn’t yet have five big league starting pitchers. While his lack of an out pitch gives him limited upside, Williams has shown the ability to get ground balls and avoid walking too many hitters, which is the basic recipe for a classic innings, and in that regard, isn’t too terribly different from Feldman.

Only Williams should cost Houston a lot less than the $10 million per year they spent on their first free agent starter, since the Angels decided to non-tender him rather than risk offering him arbitration and having him earn roughly $4 million in salary next year. The fact that he was put on the free agent market rather than get paid $4 million for one year suggests that there’s not going to be a dramatic bidding war for his services, but Williams could provide a team like Houston with some additional innings of major league quality without any of long term commitment or financial outlay. And if Williams ends up giving them 100 good innings by the All-Star break, then they’d have a decent little trade chip on their hands, having rehabilitated Williams’ value and signed him to a team friendly contract. For a non-contender with a little bit of money to spend, guys like Williams are a great place to use a few million bucks.

Paul Maholm, LHP

Perfect Fit: Toronto Blue Jays

If you stopped paying attention at the halfway point of 2013, you probably remember Paul Maholm having a pretty decent year. At the break, he had thrown 115 innings and had a 3.98 ERA, and had helped the Braves build a nice big lead in the NL East. Then, in his first start of the second half, he gave up seven runs in three innings and was subsequently placed on the DL with a left wrist contusion, which caused him to spend the next month on the sidelines. He was pretty mediocre after returning from the DL in late-August, and then was left off the Braves playoff roster, ending his season a pretty sour note.

But, prior to those 35 bad innings in the second half, Maholm was on a 450 inning run of consistently solid performances. He ran a 3.66 ERA/3.68 FIP in 2011, and then followed that up with a 3.67 ERA/4.00 FIP in 2012. At the All-Star break, he was at 3.98 ERA/4.07 FIP. These aren’t sexy numbers, but they’re perfectly serviceable for a major league starting pitcher, and that’s not the kind of track record you want to ignore because a guy had 35 bad innings surrounding a stint on the DL.

As a 32-year-old lefty with an 87 mph fastball, though, Maholm doesn’t exactly get anyone excited. However, it isn’t hard to make a case that Maholm can give a team most of what Jason Vargas could put up, and Vargas got $32 million over four years earlier in the off-season. On a cheap one year deal, Maholm could be a great addition to a team like the Blue Jays, who need a short term upgrade but hate giving long term deals to pitchers. Maholm won’t be the kind of signing that gets Blue Jays fans excited like last year’s trades did, but he’ll help make sure that they don’t have to watch Ricky Romero take the mound again in 2014, and that makes it a move worth doing in and of itself.


The Underappreciated Edwin Encarnacion

If you think about the five most dangerous hitters in baseball (as ranked by wOBA) over the past two years, you’ll certainly come up with the top two (Miguel Cabrera and Mike Trout) pretty easily. The No. 3 (Joey Votto) and No. 4 (Andrew McCutchen) bats probably wouldn’t be too difficult to discern either. But which player would round out the top five: Robinson CanoBuster PoseyGiancarlo Stanton?

That trio and many others are valid guesses, but none of them make it into the top five, and if not for the big picture at the top of this article giving it away, you might have been cycling through names in your mind for hours before coming up with Edwin Encarnacion. Often thought of as not even being the best hitter on his own team, the truth is that the soon-to-be 31-year-old Toronto slugger is one of baseball’s elite bats and still is almost certainly the sport’s most underappreciated power source.

Nomadic beginnings

If fans haven’t properly respected Encarnacion, they’re not alone, because the sport itself hasn’t always either. For years, he had been a quiet favorite of some stats-oriented observers, who looked past lousy third base defense and poor batting average (he failed to top .251 in four of his first six seasons) in favor of impressive on-base and power skills. In parts of five seasons with the Cincinnati Reds, Encarnacion hit a solid .262/.345/.449, all before the age of 27, butoccasionally clashed with manager Jerry Narron and found himself fighting for playing time with the likes of Ryan Freel and Rich Aurilia.

In 2009, Encarnacion was shipped off to the Toronto Blue Jays in the Scott Rolen deal, but even then it wasn’t smooth sailing. He was outrighted off the 40-man roster in 2010, spent time in the minors and was waived again following the season, briefly landing in the Oakland organization before the A’s let him go as well.

Just three years ago, any team could have had Encarnacion for nothing at all, and that’s shocking when you look at what he has done. Since 2010, he has more home runs than David Ortiz and only one fewer than Stanton and Cano. His wOBA over that span is identical to Shin-Soo Choo’s, who just collected a budget-busting contract from Texas, and hiswRC+ is exactly the same as that of respected stars Joe Mauer and Carlos Beltran. Even when judging Encarnacion by wins above replacement, which penalizes him for that unimpressive defense, he has been worth roughly as much asMatt Kemp in that span.

That’s pretty strong company to be mentioned in, and it hardly stops there. Over the second half of last season, Encarnacion was an almost identical offensive performer to Arizona first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, who ended up as the National League’s second-place finisher in the MVP ballot. Here’s a look at how they compared over that span:

Goldschmidt: .288/.408/.544 16.4 walk rate, .399 wOBA, 152 wRC+
Encarnacion: .286/.401/.538 16.2 walk rate, .398 wOBA, 152 wRC+

If one thing separated them, it was that Goldschimidt struck out 20.7 percent of the time in the second half, which isn’t out of the ordinary; the sport as a whole struck out 19.9 percent of the time in 2013. But Encarnacion whiffed a mere 6.7 percent of the time in the second half and 10 percent overall, making him the rare power hitter who doesn’t pile up absurd strikeout numbers, and that puts him in some other rarified company.

Contact hitter

Since the turn of the century, just five other players have done what Encarnacion accomplished in 2013, which is to hit at least 36 homers while striking out fewer than 62 times. Two of those players — Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols — rank among the best who have ever played, and two others — Todd Helton and Gary Sheffield — will have strong Hall of Fame cases to make when they become eligible. Only six qualified hitters struck out at a lower clip than Encarnacion did last year, and they were mostly Marco Scutaro types, not power hitters, with none coming within 100 points of Encarnacion’s .534 slugging percentage.

If you take that further, looking only at power hitters who know how to take a walk without piling up strikeouts, you’ll find Encarnacion’s name nearly alone at the top of the peak. Over the past two years, 28 hitters displayed an ISO of at least .200, and just five from that group walked at least 13 percent of the time; of those five, only Encarnacion and Votto walked more than they struck out. When you’re piling up free passes, not whiffing and showing immense power, you’re usually doing something right.

Of course, simply not striking out doesn’t instantly correlate with success — strikeouts aren’t often much worse than other outs — but putting the bat on the ball more often does put Encarnacion in position to take advantage of his natural skills. Again looking at 2012-13, Encarnacion has the third-highest fly ball rate in the game, and the 14th-highest rate of home runs per fly ball. The equation there is simple: more contact leads to more fly balls leads to more homers.

That’s easier said than done, and in Encarnacion’s case the key came through coaching. Prior to 2012, he was advised to shorten his swing by keeping both hands on the bat, rather than letting his top hand come off in his follow-through, and to stop attempting to pull every ball to left field. It worked, and quickly: Of Encarnacion’s 24 career homers to center and right field, 11 have come in the past two seasons.

Playing for a team outside of the media spotlight and often overshadowed by teammate Jose Bautista, Encarnacion generally gets left out of the conversation about baseball’s best. He finally made his first All-Star team in 2013, but that’s just a small step toward the recognition his performance deserves considering how great his past two seasons have been. When he’s an MVP candidate in 2014 (assuming he will have no ill effects following minor wrist surgery in September), don’t say you didn’t see it coming. After all, the past two awards went to a powerful corner infielder who didn’t offer much defensive value, either.