Gerrit Cole Trade: Wins Over Dreams

I found it rather remarkable how so many in the media and secondary baseball blogs railed against the Pirates' pieces arriving from dealing Gerrit Cole.  The argument was that Gerrit Cole is a good, but not great pitcher and that the Pirates only got spare parts.  In turn, they allegedly had a deal with the Yankees on the table that would have given them Clint Frazier and a couple spare parts.  Here at the Depot, we rarely look at the dealings of other teams so explicitly, but this may prove to be a useful discussion given the current state of the Orioles and the likelihood that we might see some significant pieces being dealt at some point this season.

For this discussion, I have little interest in what Gerrit Cole is worth.  Instead, I am interested in comparing the two deals.  The Astros handed the Pirates Joe Musgrove, Michael Feliz, Colin Moran, and Justin Martin.  This will be compared against the Yankees deal with Frazier and two spare parts.  We will assume the spare parts in the Yankees' deal are one pitching and one position prospect.

Now, prospect writers tend to be biased.  They love the big splash.  They like to be able to say lofty thing and extol on plus tools.  That is certainly a generality, but conversation about mid-level pieces does not get you much unless there is a loud tool in there to dream on.  Moran and Martin does not have any fancy tools.  Musgrove and Feliz do, but also have significant time in the majors to tarnish that shine.  It is a dull package.

From the Yankees side, it is a bit more splashy.  Clint Frazier, whose last year and a half has actually dimmed his value, is a once sterling prospect.  Before the 2017 season, he was around 20th across the boards on the top 100 MLB prospects lists.  However, it should be noted that the backend of 2016 was a struggle at AAA and 2017 AAA was hitting on level.  His time in the Majors, enough to cause his rookie status to expire, was also fairly uninspiring.  In this exercise, we will assume that his youth saves him from any of this and that he still rates on par with a positional prospect around 20th overall instead of indications that point toward these struggles as indicative of a prospect who should be around the 50th to 60th rank.

Looking at Bust Rates, Frazier is pegged as a 20-40 position prospect.  Fringe prospect probabilities were assessed using original methodology of Victor Wang in conjunction to the Perez study linked.  Feliz was treated as a fringe pitching prospect.  Moran and Martin were treated as fringe positional prospects.  Musgrove's outcomes are based on projection modeling.

	Bust		Bust
Clint Frazier	68%	Joe Musgrove	65%
Fringe A Position	89%	Michael Feliz	93%
Fringe B Pitching	93%	Colin Moran	89%
		Justin Martin	89%
All crap out	54%		46%

That does not seem like much of a difference.  The Pirates stand to have a 13% better chance of avoiding a complete bust situation.  However, the chances of receiving an exceptional prospect (>2.5 WAR/yr) is 27% for the Yankees package vs. 21% for the Pirates package (29% less).  I would even offer that the bust rate is too high for Musgrove who looked at times as if he was a fairly top notch bullpen arm.

Regardless, the difference in outcomes is not that much.  The Astros' deal offered the Pirates fits where they lack organizational depth plus a great probability that at least one player will be a solid MLB pro.  The Yankees deal offered a much better profile for a superstar player (ignoring the last 20 months of Clint Frazier's play), but at a position where the Pirates currently have some measure of MLB solutions.  What the Pirates needed was pitching and infield.  This move will likely better set up the Pirates to win as opposed to taking a chance on a superstar player.

Quick Hit on the Jake Arrieta Trade

Disclaimer Number 1 — Deep down, I'm a Chicago Cubs fan. I grew up on the Northwest Side of Chicago and watched Cubs games on WGN during summer afternoons. I write for an Orioles blog because I work for and about the Orioles' AAA farm team, but I root for the Cubs.

Disclaimer Number 2 — I've probably been more negative about Jake Arrieta than almost anyone else. I recognize that he can pitch a baseball very fast and can make pitches that move in ways that batters can't predict. But I also recognize that Arrieta's pitches don't always end up in the strike zone and, that if he pitches with less velocity or movement, batters hit them hard.

Given those two disclaimers, I think that the Cubs - Orioles trade is a good trade for both teams. The Orioles got starting pitcher Scott Feldman and catcher Steve Clevenger; the Cubs got pitcher Jake Arrieta, relief pitcher Pedro Strop, and permission to spend $388,000 on signing bonuses for interntional amateur free agents. The Orioles fill an immediate need while the Cubs add assets with longer-term potential.

That the Orioles need starting pitching is a given; the ERA of their starting pitchers ranks thirteenth in the American League. They tried Jake Arrieta as a starting pitcher earlier in the year; he failed and was optioned to Norfolk. At Norfolk, Arrieta's been an inconsistent tease; he's pitched some very good games — including a one-hit, seven-inning shutout on June 27 — but generally has struggled with his control and command. He wasn't going to be an effective part of the Orioles' 2013 rotation.

And the Orioles are, as they should be, in win-now mode. It's also fairly obvious that the Orioles' present and short-term future are better than their long-term future; there aren't a lot of young players in the Orioles' system who project to be better than their current players. Scott Feldman is pitching well as a starting pitcher for the Cubs; there's every reason to believe that he'll pitch better in 2013 than Freddy Garcia, Kevin Gausman, Zach Britton, and Arrieta, the pitchers who have rotated throught the fifth and sixth rotation spots. (A team has to account for six rotation spots because it's rare that the first five starting pitchers are healthy at the same time.)

Pedro Strop had become an ineffective and unnecessary component of the bullpen; like Carlos Marmol with the Cubs, he had been pitching so ineffectively that the fans were cutting him no slack. That made it impossible to get himself straightened out. Steve Clevenger is a generic backup catcher; because he's a left-handed, contact-oriented specialist, he may be useful after the rosters expand in September. These two players aren't important. The Orioles haven't been big spenders in the international amateur free agent market; they were unlikely to use the spending permissions they sent to the Cubs.

The Feldman for Arrieta trade is a classic trade in which a contender trades long-term assets to a non-contender for a short-term asset. The most likely outcome is that Feldman helps the Orioles to the 2013 postseason while Arrieta never rights himself; so the Orioles are most likely to "win" the trade. But the Cubs could win the trade big if Arrieta figures it out and becomes the pitcher people think he can. I think it's a good trade for both sides, and if I were a GM for either team, I'd make it.

Looking Back at the Mortgaged Future of 1996

I was reading Tony Pente's summary of the troubles the Orioles are facing and I was led to this article.  It included this passage:

The Orioles further mortgaged their future by acquiring veterans such as Eddie Murray, Todd Zeile, Pete Incaviglia, Terry Mathews and Luis Polonia and successfully made their wild-card run.

As you probably know, I hate overreaching statements and I zeroed in on this one.  I amcertain it is true that this is a mind blowingly silly statement (especially after the writer already said the system was ignored for at least a decade prior to the deals in '96, which is very true).

So did the O's "mortgage their future?"

On the links . . .

MLB Trade Rumors seems to think that maybe the O's would like to escape the last couple years of Ramon Hernandez, read on. The idea being that the Mets would like to replace Paul Lo Duca this offseason. They may be setting groundwork for Pittsburg's Ronny Paulino, who has shown some power . . . though not much plate discipline. Ramon is thought of as a more mature version of Ronny and with the Mets set up to win now . . . it might make sense to go with a plus offensive catcher with plus defensive skills. I agree that Brad Ausmus would be a good fit with the Mets. He has to be close to backup catcher material pretty soon though. Maybe a Paulino-Ausmus platoon would be viable.

Now, should the O's trade Hernandez with no heir apparent? Maybe we could turn Hernandez and questionable arm, maybe Johnson, for a Lastings Milledge and Kevin Mulvey. I might be one of the few to still believe in Milledge (if you discount the Mets top brass and some of the Bay Area graduates). I also believed in Jack Cust (he came out fine so far after his wrist surgery) and Milton Bradley (not so much). Mulvey is a good interesting arm that could develop into a bullpen guy. The thing is whether the Orioles can do with having no catcher for a year and a half. Who would they have in Hernandez' place? Some Bako-House combination. Although rather sad . . . it might be better to do that than give Hernandez 7MM or so to give us a minor tick up in offense. That is a contract more sensible to a team needing a final piece as opposed to one that needs to figure out most of the roster. It makes sense to me. Hernandez will not be the deciding factor in making this a playoff contention team, though it does leave us weak.