December Hot Stove

Here is a look around baseball with some exceedingly witty commentary from yours truly.

Quick Hitters

Lance Berkman – The Athletics seem to have him in their sites. He met with the club earlier this week, and a 1-year deal, similar to the kind that Ben Sheets signed with the club last year, seems to be coming down the pipe (Lance wants something like $8 million a year). Don’t count out the Rockies though – there is mutual interest there, though there may not be enough dough.

Ian Desmond – Apparently the Nationals are considering moving Desmond to help add depth to their starting rotation. He led baseball with 34 errors at short, but his future is very bright as he was one run from being one of only 22 players to hit 10 homers, with 60 RBI, 60 runs and 15 steals in 2010 and that was in his first big league season. Why trade that?

Adam Dunn – He wanted 4-years and $60 million – he got 4-years, $56 million from the White Sox. I have no issue with those numbers, not in the least. Neither should anyone else. I know he can’t play defense, but since 2004 Dunn is second in baseball with 282 homers, ninth in RBI (709), 15th in runs (657), fourth in extra base hits (496) and he’s sporting a .914 OPS which is higher than Hanley Ramirez (.905), Chase Utley (.901) and David Wright (.899) in the same time frame.

Zack Greinke – If he ends up with the Yankees that will be the worst match since the Yankees brought in Javier Vazquez – twice. Greinke would crumble in New York and if I was a praying man I would speak to the man upstairs that this proposed deal doesn’t come to fruition.

Kevin Gregg – He declined the Blue Jays offer of arbitration which will lead to the Jays getting a supplemental draft pick. Gregg should earn a multi-year deal from someone. You may not be aware of it, but Gregg is one of only seven pitchers in baseball with at least 23 saves in each of the past four years, and his total of 121 saves in that time is 11th overall.

J.P. Howell – He’ll be unavailable to start the 2011 season after shoulder surgery in May (he says he could be back by mid-April), and he hasn’t thrown a big league pitch since 2009. While its premature to think his career might be in jeopardy, you have to be concerned for the lefties future. I wish him luck with is long road back to the bigs.

Jose Lopez – He’ll be non-tendered by the Mariners, hardly a shock given that he is coming off his worst season in five years (.239-10-58-49-3 in 593 at-bats). Given that he owns a career slash line of .266/.297/.400 one can’t think that, in this economic environment, that he will find anyone willing to back up the money truck.

Jamie Moyer – The 48 year old lefty had Tommy John surgery on Wednesday that will knock him out of the 2011 season. Still, he isn’t ready to give up on his dream of 300 career victories (he has 267 wins). Moyer says he will target a return to action in 2012. If you aren’t rooting for him you must be related to Ebenezer Scrooge.

Oliver Perez – Reports out of the Mexican Winter League are that Perez is consistently sitting at 88 mph, with his fastball, but that he has been able to get his heater up to 91-92. He’s also thrown 10-straight scoreless innings. Add that up and I’m 100 percent positive that he will more than justify the $12 million he is to be paid in 2011 (dripping sarcasm). Goodness gracious.

Mark Prior – The Rangers are said to have interest in the one time phenom. Reports are that Prior has gotten his fastball back into the 91-92 mph territory, and with that speed he could have success as an arm out of the pen. He will never reach the heights that were once predicted, but I’m certainly rooting for him. Amazingly, he is still just 30 years old.

Robinson Tejeda – This is just the type of guy that teams should take a shot on. Why are the Royals willing to deal the cannon armed Tejeda who had a 3.54 ERA and 1.33 WHIP in 61 innings last season? Because they are the Royals of course. Dating back to July 25th of 2009 Tejeda has posted a 2.97 ERA with a 1.15 WHIP and 8.84 K/9 mark over 112 innings. Who couldn’t use that?

Brandon Webb – Every team in baseball seems to be in on the sinker balling righty. Someone will give him a heavily incentivized deal to pitch for them in 2011, but if you talk to scouts they will tell you that his performance late in 2010, as he continues his attempted comeback from a shoulder surgery, was poor at best. Don’t forget that he has tossed all of four innings the past two years.

By Ray Flowers

Around the Horn: July 23, 2010

(1) David DeJesus out for the year with injured thumb.

(2) It’s true, Brian Roberts is back.

(3) Carl Crawford returns to the starting lineup.

(4) Justin Masterson could be shut down in September.

(5) Rangers could get Rich Harden and Derek Holland back soon.

(6) J.A. Happ to return to Phillies because of injury to Jamie Moyer.

(7) The Royals have recalled Alex Gordon. Should you care? Read Five Questions to find out (there is also more in that piece about Roberts return and what to do with Happ).

By Ray Flowers

Around the Horn: July 22, 2010

(1) Angels deal for Alberto Callaspo, give up Sean O’Sullivan and William Smith. Rick Ankiel activated.

(2) Jamie Moyer has sprained UCL (grade 2), might need TJ Surgery.

(3) Roy Oswalt, Dan Haren, Brett Myers, Ted Lilly on the block.

(4) Edison Volquez lit up by Nationals.

(5) Josh Johnson, 13-straight starts two or fewer earned runs.

(6) Bobby Jenks removed from closers role.

(7) Brian Roberts could return as early as Friday.

(8) Jacoby Ellsbury takes BP.

By Ray Flowers

Commonalities Wanted

There’s no theme whatsoever to my article today. I just threw everything into a hopper and wrote about the names that fell out. Oh don’t worry, it’s really insightful stuff, there just isn’t a common thread to tie everything together.

Coco Crisp has been activated by the A’s. He hit .590 with five RBI during his rehab work in the minors signaling that his body might finally be right, finally. Still, there are about seven outfielders with the A’s club, so it remains to be seen if he will have a spot in the daily lineup, especially since his skills are so similar to those of Rajai Davis.

Mark DeRosa’s season is over as he will need surgery to repair his injured wrist. In the first year of a $12 million two year contract, DeRosa gave the Giants all of one homer, 10 RBI and 93 at-bats. That’s almost as bad an investment as The Bachelor’s Jake Pavelka made in his lady friend, Vienna Girardi. Oh stop acting like you don’t watch the show – we all know you do.

Josh Hamilton is back, and it appears that he is better than ever before. Josh is hitting .337, has a 16 game hitting streak, and is sporting a .981 OPS. Back in his “breakout” 2008 effort he hit .304 with a .901 OPS. He’s frighteningly talented.

Trevor Hoffman has been awful for most of the year, everyone knows that. However, he has improved tremendously of late and appears on the cusp of reclaiming his 9th inning role. “We kind of talked about that several times today,” manager Ken Macha said. “We’ll see how some things go. That is two good outings in a row, so I’ll talk to him [Thursday] and see how he’s feeling about himself.” If you are a John Axford owner you’ll want to hold on, but make sure Hoffman isn’t on waivers if you play in a deep league.

Jamie Moyer is almost old enough to join AARP as he is 47 years old. Amazingly, he has stuck around long enough to pile up 265 victories. That total places him 10th all-time in victories by a lefty, an it’s also one behind the immortal Bob Feller and three behind Jim Palmer. Need some more info about just how amazing Moyer’s career has been? Since turning 30 he has won 231 games, the sixth most ever from that age to the end of a player’s career. To put that win total in perspective, Roy Oswalt has 142 victories, Tim Hudson 155 and Roy Halladay 156 — in their entire careers.

Buster Posey, everyone’s darling when he was called up, has hit the skids of late with a mere .186 average and a .524 OPS over his last 43 at-bats. His average is still shade over .300 at .303, but his .421 SLG is a pretty pathetic number for a first sacker (the NL average for the position is .458). I know it borders on heresy in some corners, but Posey really needs to pick it up or he could start to lose playing time (he isn’t in the lineup on Tuesday night as Pablo Sandoval is at first with Juan Uribe at third).

Mike Stanton, who I spoke of yesterday in my Around the Horn, June 21st video, deserves to be mentioned again. Here is, in written word, what I spoke of yesterday; you simply cannot have success in the big leagues if you strikeout more than 40 percent of the time. I know it’s a miniscule sample size we’re breaking down with the talented Fish, but 19 whiffs in 43 at-bats gives him a K-rate of 44.2 percent. Chris Davis, basically demoted to the minor because he whiffs too often, owns a K-rate of 34.7 percent in his career. Other noted purveyors of the strikeout follow with their career K-rates in parenthesis: Ryan Howard (32.3), Adam Dunn (32.4), Mark Reynolds (38.2) and Jack Cust (39.1). As you can tell from that list you can be mighty successful in the bigs even if you pile up copious amounts of strikeouts, but if Stanton wants to make his mark this season he’s gonna have to knock like 10 percentage points off his current rate.

By Ray Flowers

A Risk Worth Taking?

Besides me, who else is counting on Oliver Perez to have a big second half? From time to time I write about my National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) team, and that league consists of 15-teams with 30 players per roster. Given the depth of the penetration into the player pool, there are always a handful of players on each roster that might cause someone to pause if they are used to traditional 10-12 team leagues. So before you think – Ray is a doofus – realize we are talking about some pretty deep rosters here. Back to Oliver Perez.

Perez is one of the names that I picked up off waivers this season. A risky play? For sure as the man walks more batters per nine than just about any starter in the game, but oh does he look dominating when he is on. Problem is, that rarely occurs. Here’s to hoping it occurs, more often than not, the rest of way. That might be a fairly large wish though — perhaps I’ll leave that wish for the tooth fairy.

Why did I grab Perez? Well, after Andy Sonnanstine seemed to forget that the name of the game wasn’t to allow a run per inning (he has a 6.61 ERA), and Ian Snell thought he would try to pitch his way out of Pittsburgh with some awful work (5.36 ERA, 1.62 WHIP), I realized I needed something other than a staff consisting of names like Jamie Moyer. So I took a shot an picked up Perez, weeks ago, in the hope that he would come through. What other waiver-wire guy in a 15 team league has k-per-inning potential?

Another hurler with a similar skill set down to the potentially prolific K-rate as well as the atrocious walk rate is Brandon Morrow of the Mariners who we also picked up on the cheap off the waiver-wire (by the way, isn’t the picture above one of the best you have ever seen? For those of you that don’t know – a form of rookie hazing in baseball is having the youngsters carry the veterans gear, often in things like little girls backpacks). Possibly the only pitcher in baseball who has a more difficult time throwing strikes than Perez, Morrow has thrown 174 innings in his career while waling 115 batters leading to an embarrassing average of 5.95 walks per nine innings pitched in his brief career. Of course, his stuff is untouchable as his K/9 mark of 9.62 is superb. Obviously the kid has talent to burn, but until he starts throwing strikes more consistently he will be maddening to own (he should return from the minors to make a start of July 25th if everything goes according to plan).

The third arm in our Trifecta of Terror is Joba Chamberlain (and yes I’m still not sure if the terror will be most acutely directed toward opposing batters or my blood pressure). Joba clearly hasn’t performed as hoped for in his transition to the starting rotation as he has only four victories, a 4.25 ERA and a 1.56 WHIP through 17 starts this year. Still, his K/9 rate is 7.89 which is a strong mark, and if you add in his work out of the bullpen he has a 9.70 K/9 mark over 213.1 career innings. However, like the other two mentioned above, he is walking far too many batters, though by comparison his 4.25 BB/9 mark actually isn’t that awful.

So is rostering these three guys a risk worth taking? My club need wins and strikeouts, and these three could bring that. In fact, I can pretty easily dream up a scenario with the trio striking out nearly a batter per inning the rest of the way, but the key is will they be able to locate their pitches better, because without that, there ratios could be outright destructive. I know it’s a risk, but sometimes you have to take that leap of faith when the alternatives are guys like Vincente Padilla, Jeff Suppan and Micah Owings. I’m going to close my eyes, pray really hard, and hope these three potentially dominating arms are in fact dominating and not destructive to my fantasy squad. One can hope can’t he?

By Ray Flowers