Stars or Depth -- One Dylan Bundy or Two Other Prospects?

Just how good a prospect is Dylan Bundy? He’s the consensus best pitching prospect in baseball. The Orioles are lucky to have him in their farm system; every other team would love to have him in its farm system. But a team needs more than one superstar to be a contender. Are the Orioles better off with Bundy than with, say, two prospects ranking in the high teens? Two prospects who rank around #50? Baseball America has just come out with their 2013 Top 100 Prospects for 2013. In this article, I will look at their list and try to identify how valuable Bundy is.

Last year, the Nationals’ Bryce Harper was the consensus #1 prospect in baseball. The number 2 and number 3 prospects were Mike Trout and Matt Moore. Obviously, the package of Trout and Moore would be superior to Harper alone. Numbers 10 and 11 were Orioles’ system-mates Dylan Bundy and Manny Machado; again, the combined package of Bundy and Machado would be superior to Harper alone. I don’t remember where I thought Harper would be equal to the package of two consecutively-rated prospects, and redoing the process now would be tainted by what happened in 2012; I think the spit was somewhere around #40 and #41.

For 2013, Dylan Bundy ranks #2, in a tightly bunched group with #1 Jurickson Profar of Texas, #3 Oscar Taveras of St. Louis, and #4 Wil Myers of Tampa Bay. Given a choice, any sane, unbiased GM would rather have any two of the other three than Bundy alone. The question is, at what level does Dylan Bundy become more valuable than a package of two prospects at that level?

I want to make a couple of points. First, this will be my opinion; you or someone else may put more valuable on best-case ceiling, or worse-case floor, or position, and thus rate player packages differently. Also, this won’t be an absolutely consistent ranking. Sometimes, two prospects you or I don’t happen to like are rated together, and so we might think Bundy more valuable than a specific package but less valuable than a similarly-rated package. For example, BA rates two teenage Twins prospects, Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton, at #9 and #10. I would rather have Bundy, a more advanced and more certain prospect, than even a package of Sano and Buxton, both of whom have a fairly good chance of not making the major leagues at all. On the other hand, #13 is young shortstop Carlos Correa and #14 is major-league-ready pitcher Trevor Bauer. Bauer’s already pitched in the major leagues and is almost as likely as Bundy to be a star. Correa is more than adequate compensation for having Bauer over Bundy.

Since I’ve compared Bundy to the #13-#14 package, I’ll now take a look at the players around #25. #24 is Kyle Zimmer, a right-handed pitcher in the Royals’ system; #25 is Archie Bradley, a right-handed pitcher in the Diamondbacks system, and #26 is the Orioles’ own Kevin Gausman. Bradley and Bundy share a lot. They were both #1 draft picks from Oklahoma high schools in 2011; Bundy went #4 and Bradley #7. Bundy raced through Low-A and High-A to AA in 2012; Bradley pitched all year at Low-A. Bundy showed more control, but the Diamondbacks let Bradley pitch thirty more innings. While Bundy is a better prospect, if someone told me they’d take Bundy but I could have Bradley AND either Zimmer or Gausman, it’s a no-brainer – I’ll take the two-prospect package.

Let’s move down to around #40. #40 is Matt Barnes, another 2011 first-round pick, this time in the Red Sox’ system. Barnes pitched brilliantly in 4 Low-A starts, but because he’s a college pitcher and was age 22, that doesn’t tell us much. He pitched well but didn’t dominate at High-A. Barnes looks to be a good bet to be a solid rotation starter, maybe making the all-star teams in his good season, but he’s unlikely to be a star. #39 is Cardinals right-handed pitcher Trevor Rosenthal, who is kind of hard to evaluate. He pitched very well as a major-league relief pitcher. He pitched well in the minors as a starter in 2012, less well in 2011. #41 is Oswaldo Arcia, a corner outfielder in the Twins’ system. His 2012 performance is much better than his performance in an injury-plagued 2011, and he’s already lost some speed and may lose more. This is a close call, and I would be okay with either Bundy or the Barnes-Arcia package.

And that’s about as far down as I’d go. After Arcia, the top 100 prospects don’t project to be stars, are substantially higher risk, or both. There are individual pairs that I might take -- #59 Alex Meyer and #60 Kaleb Cowart might tempt me, as might #67 Lucas Giolito and #68 Kyle Gibson – but those are the exceptions. So, based on the past couple of seasons, a top-three or top-four prospect in baseball is roughly as good as having two prospects around the fortieth-best in baseball.

ESPN3: College Baseball to watch Feb 22-24th

Well, the college baseball season is upon us, which means that each weekend ESPN3 will be airing a schedule of games every weekend that I plan on highlighting each week. I'll try to give you a rundown of games to watch and the players to keep an eye on in those games as it pertains to the draft.

Up this week on the schedule are: (all times EST)

Fri, Feb 22	4 p.m.	St. John’s at No. 21 Georgia Tech						ESPN3
Sat, Feb 23	2 p.m.	South Florida at No. 9 Florida State
	2 p.m.	St. John’s at No. 21 Georgia Tech
Sun, Feb 24	1 p.m.	South Florida at No. 9 Florida State

Players to keep an eye on:
Georgia Tech
SP - Buck Farmer 
1B/OF - Daniel Palka (Whose grandfather, Eugene Palka, played 2 years in the Orioles org.)
OF - Brandon Thomas

Florida State
LHP - Brandon Liebrandt (Son of former ML Charlie Liebrandt)
2B/SS - Justin Gonzalez

Dan Duquette's Grand Pitching Plan: Its Jurrjens Time!

Last year, Dan Duquette disappointed many an Orioles fan.  I will not go through most of the transactions, but here is a subset involving acquisitions of pitching talent:

November 22, 2011 - Signed P Miguel Socolovich
December 8, 2011 - Traded P Jarret Martin and UTL Tyler Henson for P Dana Eveland
December 13, 2011 - Signed P Tsuyoshi Wada
December 16, 2011 - Signed P John Link
January 4, 2012 - Signed P Willie Eyre
January 9, 2012 - Signed P Ross Wolf
January 10, 2012 - Signed P Wei-Yin Chen
January 18, 2012 - Signed P Armando Galarraga and P Oscar Villareal
January 20, 2012 - Signed P Dennys Reyes
January 21, 2012 - Signed P Chris George

So...how inspiring is that list?  Faced with a mess of a rotation at the end of 2011, Duquette decided to keep Jake Arrieta, Chris Tillman, Brian Matusz, Tommy Hunter, Brad Bergesen, and Zach Britton.  At this point, he was also far along in sending Jeremy Guthrie to the Rockies for Jason Hammel.  Duquette decided to collect additional bottom tier arms in Eveland, Wada, Wolf, Chen, and Galarraga.  What this does is that it allows you to play the entire field to figure out your actual rotation.  If you collect a bunch of bottom fringe arms, it enables you to cast away players who do not perform well with those who might be doing well in spring training or in the minors.  That gives you a lot of freedom by not hindering the Major League club with big money deals on players who will not agree with being sent to the minors.

The key though is looking at this group and being able to discern which players are the useful ones and which are the ones the team should feel free to expose on waivers.  It can certainly be argued that the Orioles made mistakes by designating Alfredo Simon instead of releasing Kevin Gregg or designating Brad Bergesen instead of releasing Kevin Gregg when the team acquired Omar Quintanilla.  Both Simon and Bergesen were lights out coming out of the bullpen for the Reds and Diamondbacks, respectively.  Their loss was not felt much by the Orioles because they had a massive amount of relief arms that could fill in any role.  However, again, the bulky contract given to Kevin Gregg probably is a big reason why he stayed instead of the lower cost pitchers like Simon or Bergesen.  But, yes, they were not big losses and the team, with a large stable of fringe arms, was able to find effective replacements.

The point is that if you acquire a great deal of low end talent, you provide yourself with cheap opportunity to find talent or performance that was overlooked.  It can be argued that signing a half dozen sixth starters is much more useful than signing someone like Joe Saunders to a three year deal when he likely represents 4th or 5th slot performance for a first division team.

Why bring all of this up?

February 15, 2013 - Orioles sign starting pitcher Jair Jurrjens and designate for assigment.

Jurrjens is familiar with many an Orioles fan due to his appearance in many a Adam Jones to Atlanta deal.  Based on what information there is available it seems an impasse arose when the Braves offered Martin Prado, who was recently a big piece in a deal for Justin Upton, Jair Jurrjens, and a couple fringe low minor arms for Jones.  The Orioles balked and demanded that two of the following be added: Brandon Beachy, Randall Delgado, Mike Minor, Julio Teheran, and Arodys Vizcaino.  Unfortunately for the Braves, they broke off talks as 20/20 hindsight shows that offering Jurrjens, Teheran, and Vizcaino would have been a steal for them.  The value of those three has tanked.  Beachy wound up going under the knife and won't be much of a contributor until 2014.  Delgado is going West in the Upton deal.  Mike Minor is healthy and looks like a good mid-rotation arm.  In other words, it is probably a good thing the Orioles kept Jones.

Why did Jurrjens' value drop even though he was dominating the NL halfway through the 2011 season?  Injuries have led to Jurrjens coming over the top more in his release.  Changes in his mechanics have led to a higher release point, poorer command, and reduced velocity.  He used to sit around 91 mph and creep up to 96 mph, but injuries lowered that to 89 mph, topping out at 91.  That may not seem like a major drop in velocity, but you can consider Chris Tillman here.  Tillman, of course, uses a different repertoire, but losing two or three mph results in a lot less swing and misses.  He saw an increase in batter contact from 83 to 90% with much of that, amazing, coming on contct with pitches out of the zone.  If players are connecting, then it increases the likelihood that they will be getting on base.  Based on Jurrjens velocity at the end of last year (before a groin injury ended his season), he was still an upper 80s pitcher.

Ok, so why did Duquette signed a low end pitcher with three seasons upended by leg injuries and continued reduced velocity?  Well, he is cheap and he can be optioned if he makes the 40 man roster.  Jurrjens can be optioned to Norfolk this year, go through arbitration next year, and be optioned again in 2014.  That maneuverability make Jurrjens a player that you can shuttle back and forth between Baltimore and Norfolk, hoping he gets back on the right track.  This would be similar to how Tillman and Matusz were treated. Hoarding and moving fringe rotation talent does seem to be a characteristics of this regime.

Here is a probably starting pitching depth chart:

Jason Hammel
Wei-Yin Chen
Chris Tillman
Miguel Gonzalez
Zach Britton
Jake Arrieta
Steve Johnson
Brian Matusz
Jair Jurrjens
Tommy Hunter
Dylan Bundy
Tsuyoshi Wada

I would group Hammel and Chen as locks.  Tillman would have to do something awfully wrong to get bumped.  Gonzalez, Britton, and Arrieta are likely in some measure in a fight for two positions.  Johnson will have a hard time finding an in while Matusz will be given an opportunity if he is dominant in Spring Training.  Of the rest, Jurrjens and Bundy are the two who could race up the chart and nestle in behind Hammel and Chen.  On April 2nd, Jurrjens has a better probability to have done that.  On August 1st, Bundy would be the one with the better probability.

Revisiting the Kevin Gregg Era

In January 2011, the Orioles signed Kevin Gregg to a two-year, $10 million deal with a team option for 2013. Gregg, signed by Andy MacPhail, was brought in to be the team's closer, primarily because he compiled 37 saves in 2010 after having somewhat of a rebound year with the Blue Jays.

Gregg has been a replacement-level reliever (-0.1 fWAR) throughout his career. In 2009, he posted a then-career worst fWAR of -0.3 after being traded to the Cubs and avoiding arbitration with a one-year, $4.2 million deal. The Blue Jays signed him for $2 million the next season, and he was decent but not great (0.8 fWAR). After receiving a $750,000 buyout because the Blue Jays declined his team options, Gregg was offered arbitration, declined, and became a free agent. Also, because Gregg was a Type B free agent, Toronto obtained a supplementary first-round pick in the 2011 draft. So that ended up being a shrewd signing.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Baltimore's decision. The signing didn't make sense, not because Gregg was horrible, but because the Orioles inked him for multiple years and paid him too much money. As Daniel Moroz (linked above) pointed out at the time, the O's were essentially paying Gregg to be worth two wins above replacement in 2011 and 2012 combined. Instead, he ended his Orioles career with an fWAR of -0.5 and a rWAR of -0.4 when he was designated for assignment last September.

In his first season in Baltimore, Gregg struck out fewer batters and walked more of them than in 2010, while his HR/FB rate increased by about four percentage points -- a bad thing for any pitcher, but especially so for a flyball pitcher like Gregg. His velocity also dipped a bit, which was a trend that continued into 2012. His ERA jumped from 3.51 in 2010 to 4.37 in 2011.

With Dan Duquette in and MacPhail out, the Orioles did what they could to rid themselves of Gregg and his contract, offering to pay a chunk of his salary to ship him out of town. However, such a trade never materialized. But maybe fans were being too hard on Gregg, one Baltimore Sun columnist said. Maybe he would regain his Toronto-pitching form, "where he developed the reputation of a gamer who loved getting the ball in tight situations." That didn't happen. Gregg wasn't much better, posting a 4.95 ERA, though he did cut down on his walks. His HR/FB rate increased another three percentage points, but he was a little unlucky on batted balls (.338 BABIP).

Buck Showalter eventually learned how to use Gregg: let him mainly pitch in garbage time. In 2011, Gregg had seven blown saves in 29 total chances and pitched in many important/winnable games. In 2012, he had none because he didn't receive a single save opportunity. He also went from pitching in 59.2 innings in 2011 to just 43.2, his lowest total since his rookie year in 2003.

I doubt that's what MacPhail envisioned when he signed Gregg, but Showalter adjusted and figured out that he just wasn't that good. Maybe that's why average relievers shouldn't receive two-year, eight-figure contracts.

Still, I guess we should thank Gregg for sort of contributing to the Orioles' return to the playoffs last season. But mostly, we appreciate his exciting interaction with David Ortiz in July of 2011. Plus, we'll always remember the glasses.

Sunday Comics: Happy Spring Training!

I apologize for disappearing last week - I was swallowed by graduate school work, but now that I'm able to breathe again here's this week's cartoon!

Really, Spring Training is just an excuse for baseball players to play golf and all of us to get really excited.