Sorry for not writing this past week. Work took me to Green Bay, WI for the first time. If you’ve never seen Lambeau up close, I highly recommend it. i
Today, I want to use the Red Sox acquisition of Adrian Gonzalez to demonstrate the value in being a well-run, disciplined organization. I italicized disciplined for a reason. Some of the fan base has been up in arms this week that the team hasn’t been more aggressive so far in free agency. In particular, losing Cy Young (I’m sorry, Hisanori Takahashi), to the Angels has been treated in some quarters like losing Mike Hampton back in 2001 – and look how well that turned out.
In case you missed it, the Padres traded their all-star first baseman, Adrian Gonzalez to the Red Sox for prospects Casey Kelly, Anthony Rizzo and Reymond Fuentes.
The centerpiece of the deal is Kelly. The Sox took him with the 30th pick in the 2008 draft. MLB’s “slot” for the 30th pick in that draft was $1.21 million. But to convince Kelly to give up a football scholarship at Tennessee, the Sox gave him a $3 million bonus. In that same ’08 draft, the Mets had the 18th, 22nd and 33rd picks. You can’t beat the Mets up for going with Ike Davis over Kelly at #18, but I do think it’s fair to criticize the selection of Reese Havens at 22 instead of going with Kelly. Havens got a $1.5 million bonus at slot. It’s possible Havens may still turn out to be a good (maybe a very good) pro. That said, he could not front a package for a front line player like A-Gon.
Anthony Rizzo was a 2007 6th Round Pick out of high school in Florida. The Sox gave him a $325,000 signing bonus (early 3rd round money). The Mets stuck to slot in ’07 and in the 6th round drafted pitcher Guillaume Leduc (to be fair they drafted Lucas Duda in the 7th) giving him a $120,000 bonus. Rizzo is a premium power hitting prospect who the Pads clearly envision as a future replacement for Gonzalez.
Finally, there’s a name that Mets fans might be familiar with: Reymond Fuentes. Carlos Beltran’s cousin received an at slot bonus ($1,134,000) with the 28th pick in the 2009 draft. The Mets did not have a first round pick in the ’09 draft because our pick went to the Angels for the right to pay K-Rod $39 mil over 3 years (a move seemingly dictated by fans at Omar Minaya’s local bagel shop).
What’s amazing here is how little it would have cost the Mets to have all three players the Sox used to get A-gon. Putting aside whether the Mets could have identified the value of all three players, (and in the case of Kelly and Fuentes there’s every reason to think they could have as they were consensus top talents), the total cost for the three players was only $4.45 million. The Mets spent $1.6 mil (not counting the $39 mil on K-Rod) so the difference is only $2.86 million.
That’s right – for the cost of less than the Mets were paying Scott Schoenweis during this time period, they could have easily had all three players. And this isn’t some “small-market” strategy: this is the Red Sox, who almost certainly have more revenue than the Mets.
In today’s game, the draft represents a true bargain. Even expensive “above-slot” players are cheaper than average lefty-specialists. A big misconception is that “building through the draft” means that you are rebuilding. The sox are proof that by setting aside some more money in the draft you can both build for the future and enhance your current team.
I know I’ve made this point before, but to me, sabermetrics is more than using advanced statistical metrics. Instead, it’s about figuring out how to use resources in the best possible manner.
And that’s why I’m so happy to have the new regime in charge. We may not have a flashy free-agent signing to celebrate this holiday season; but we have something far better: a real plan that will lead to sustainable success going forward. If the $5 mil that went to Takahashi is invested in above-slot bonuses, it will be money (not) well spent.
12 comments
stickguy
12/6/2010-10:32am at 10:32 am (UTC -4)
hard to argue with this.
The other thing that the Yankees and Sox seem to be better at is ammassing picks in the first place. And you do that by letting guys walk who are worth compensation picks, and finding comparable replacements elsewhere. That way, you get a player, plus the bonus picks.
and last I checked, it is still easier to get 1st round talent if you are actually picking in the 1st round!
I have always been curious though about how many of these special overslot guys thee actually are each year. a couple? 10? dozens? Are there really that many players that fall out of the 1st round that are projected to be studs?
TRS86
12/6/2010-12:04pm at 12:04 pm (UTC -4)
Nice work.
oleosmirf
12/6/2010-12:14pm at 12:14 pm (UTC -4)
see what the Red Sox do is they let their type A free agents go and sign type A free agents from other teams so they still have the other team’s 1st round pick once they give up theirs plus they receive the compensation.
in essense the sawks, swap one player for another while getting an extra sandwich pick in the process.
TRS86
12/6/2010-12:31pm at 12:31 pm (UTC -4)
Dave KingmanMark Reynolds, traded to the O’s.“Reynolds owns the first three spots on the single-season strikeout all-time leaderboard.”
LOL, that’s impressive.
stickguy
12/6/2010-1:20pm at 1:20 pm (UTC -4)
he also hits a lot of HRs.
so, it brings up the old saber arguement of whether Ks are any worse than any other outs.
If he had identical numbers across the board, but took 1/2 of his Ks and turned them into IF pop ups instead, finishing with around 110Ks/year, would you consider him to be good bad or average as a player?
TRS86
12/6/2010-1:28pm at 1:28 pm (UTC -4)
Take a look at his average and answer that question.
TRS86
12/6/2010-1:28pm at 1:28 pm (UTC -4)
Guy just makes outs period, strike outs, ground outs, fly outs, outs outs.
stickguy
12/6/2010-1:38pm at 1:38 pm (UTC -4)
so I guess your answer (I was too lazy to actually look up his numbers) is that he sucks period. Not just because of the Ks.
Dunn is probably a better example of the question anyway. And coming up fast in the rear view mirror, david Wright.
TRS86
12/6/2010-2:03pm at 2:03 pm (UTC -4)
Dunn is a much different case in my mind because of his OBP.
Here is Reynolds line from last year.
.198 .320 .433 .753 with 32 HR.
BillPetti
12/6/2010-1:59pm at 1:59 pm (UTC -4)
@metsfan2011:
“sabermetrics is more than using advanced statistical metrics. Instead, it’s about figuring out how to use resources in the best possible manner.”
Great piece. I’ve generally described Moneyball to people this way. Forget about the whole small market issue. It’s about understanding what behaviors most contribute to the outcome one wants (in baseball, it’s wins) and then matching one’s resources to obtain and incentivise those behaviors in the most efficient way.
@stickguy:
It is an interesting question. For all his strikeouts, Reynolds sees the 5th most pitches in the league. So theoretically those outs are generally productive. But, If you restrict the type of outs to infield flys he’d actually be worse, at least from a wOBA perspective.
Generally, you’d expect strikeouts are less valuable than other outs. From a run expectancy perspective, K’s are worth -.3 and ground outs and fly outs aren’t as bad (-.24 and -.28 respectively). This makes intuitive sense since when you strikeout you don’t put the ball in play. When the ball is in play there are a number of good things that can happen (move runners over, possible errors by fielders leading to bases, etc) that can’t happen when you strikeout.
However, infield flys actually have a worse run expectancy than strikeouts (both swinging and looking K’s): -.55.
Bottom line, though, is that Reynolds wouldn’t hit over 100 infield flies. Only 5% of batted balls are IF’s. If you take his 2010, Reynolds hit 288 balls in play, which means he’d likely only hit about 14 IF’s per year. If he reduced his K rate by half his wOBA would likely increase as he’d make more productive outs.
Mr North Jersey
12/6/2010-2:15pm at 2:15 pm (UTC -4)
Hey metsfan20xx,
Nice research for the article. Good read I enjoyed it.
metsfan2011
12/6/2010-5:35pm at 5:35 pm (UTC -4)
thanks, appreciate it.