Scattered Thoughts

First off, apologies for my extended absence.  There is no one good reason to explain it all away; sadly, I might have another extended break after this post, as I’m heading to school soon, plus taking a trip and generally being socially busy in the near future.  Hopefully I’ll still find time to blog throughout the fall, but I have a lot of adjustments to make as I get back to school.

Anyway, I had planned to write an extended breakdown of why I thought the Dodgers would win the NL West, while analyzing their organizational standing going forward.  Then earlier this week, the Diamondbacks’ Orlando Hudson went down for the season.  Hudson is one of the more underrated players in all of baseball in my mind – he’s one of the few truly game changing defenders at second base (he’s a 3 time Gold Glove winner, for what that’s worth), and he’s developed into a really solid hitter (.305/.367/.450
this year).  As the difference in the standings has been between 2.5 and 0 games in favor of the Diamondbacks everyday since July 1 and the actual team quality difference has been even less than that (actually favoring the Dodgers based on expected W-L records), I figured the Dodgers’ upgrade – adding Manny – plus the Diamondbacks’ loss would equal an easier road for the Dodgers.  Today, though, Josh Byrnes and the Diamondbacks threw a wrench in that idea, trading for Adam Dunn.  Dunn is not a perfect fit there, as they could really use a good outfield defender, but his lefty stick fits nicely in a lineup that leans heavily to the right.  The price was right, too.  I guess I still like the Dodgers by a nose, because the addition of Dunn is largely offset by the subtraction of Hudson.  That’s been enough to keep them in first so far, but as long as Joe Torre resists the temptation to throw Andruw Jones or Juan Pierre into the outfield instead of Matt Kemp or Andre Ethier, the Dodgers are the better team.

Moving along, Cubs manager Lou Piniella basically told Kosuke Fukudome to start hitting or he’ll be losing playing time.  Fukudome has not been quick to react to the league’s adjustment to him, and his numbers have gotten worse as the season has gone on.  The Cubs have to be hoping that Kosuke’s 2008 is roughly the equivalent of JD Drew’s 2007, which is to say, a negative outlier.  Kosuke has good on base skills, so he’s been a plus even with the struggles, but the Cubs have the personnel to bench Fukudome occasionally; against righties, Mike Fontenot can start at second while Mark DeRosa moves to the outfield.  Lou also said that Reed Johnson could get time instead of Kosuke, but Reed’s struggled against righties, and is pretty much already in a straight platoon with Jim Edmonds in center, with Johnson starting versus lefties.

Speaking of Mike Fontenot, he’s been great for the Cubs this year, but they might see what trade value he has this winter.  He’s limited to one position, second base, and has never hit against lefties.  He could be start for about half the teams in the National League.  If not, he’ll continue to be part of an excellent bench.

Tampa Bay, already one of the most interesting teams in baseball in 2008, has been noteworthy of late.  Rocco Baldelli returned from a mitochondrial disorder to play for the first time all year, just as Carl Crawford hits the disabled list with a finger injury.  Evan Longoria, AL rookie of the year shoo-in, also hit the DL with
a wrist injury.  Crawford might be down for the year, a tough blow for a Rays team that was finally going to have its intended starting outfield all set.  Oh, and lefty pitching phenom David Price is knocking on the doorstep of the majors.  He should get a look later this fall, helping the team in the rotation or bullpen.  Also of note is that Price has thrown just over 90 innings so far this year.  If the Rays set a cap at about 150 innings for him this year (roughly the ceiling Clay Buchholz notoriously faced for the Red Sox last year), he’s still got quite a few innings left.  One last Rays/Price note:  if you haven’t read the recent Sports Illustrated feature on African Americans in baseball, do it ASAP.

One last thing:  the Dodgers’ Chad Billingsley should be on your NL Cy Young shortlist/watchlist.  He’s one of the best pitchers in the NL this year, along with a lot of guys you’ve already heard about:  CC Sabathia, Dan Haren, Brandon Webb, Rich Harden, Ryan Dempster, Carlos Zambrano, Tim Lincecum, Ben Sheets, Johan Santana, and Jake Peavy.  He’s probably just a hair behind all those guys in total value so far this year, but gets no media coverage.  Along with Clayton Kershaw, the Dodgers are going to have a devastating 1-2 punch in the rotation for years.

Team-by-Team Trade Possibilities: AL West

Previous entries in the series:
AL East
AL Central

Seattle Mariners – The Mariners are in really bad shape, to put it mildly.  They’re going through a front office change, they’re currently terrible, their franchise player (Ichiro) is aging, and their farm system is not among the best in the game.  However, they do have several movable parts for the deadline:  Adrian Beltre, who is coveted by the Twins, as I detailed yesterday; Jarrod Washburn, who they’ve discussed with the Yankees (however, it seems the teams are at an impasse – the Yanks only want to take the contract for a bit player, but the Mariners want a “real” prospect); and Raul Ibanez, who seems destined to become a Met once the two teams can agree on a price.  I’m surprised they’ve waited this long on trading Ibanez, Wladimir Balentien looks like a nice, major league-ready power hitting corner outfield prospect (and has for awhile now).  Other than that, Richie Sexson has already been released and signed by the Yankees – apparently he had NO trade value whatsoever, whether or not the M’s picked up the remainder of his contract.  Jose Vidro is probably not going to excite anyone, neither is Willie Bloomquist, neither is Kenji Johjima and his new extension, and so on.  Ichiro is going nowhere.
Arthur Rhodes might get moved – he’s another of those veteran lefties who is the backup plan for a lot of teams, so while he might not command a lot, he most likely will find a new home.

Oakland A’s – They’ve already been busy, moving Rich Harden, Chad Gaudin, and Joe Blanton this month, as we’ve covered already.  It has been a bit of a hard luck season for the A’s; the runs scored/runs allowed numbers indicate that the A’s should be at least one game better than the Angels.  That’s a better indicator of team performance going forward, but two caveats come into play here:

1. The team the A’s will be trotting out there the rest of the year is different from the one they’ve been using all year, and
2.  Great bullpens often help teams overcome mediocre expected (or Pythagenport) W-L records, and the Angels certainly have one of those.

Anyway, it’s possible the A’s still have some wheeling and dealing left.  Guys who might get moved: Justin Duchscherer – the AL ERA leader is probably experiencing a career year, and has several suitors, from the White Sox to the Rockies.  Closer Huston Street is one of the best relievers on the market, and has been rumored to be piquing interest in many places:  Tampa Bay, Chicago’s south side (Sox), and the LA Dodgers, among others.  Lefty Alan Embree is in that Rhodes/Eyre class of veterans who might end up elsewhere.  There have not been many Mark Ellis rumors, but with Eric Patterson on board and the A’s all but conceding this year, he might go for the right price – he’s a free agent after the season, though the A’s would love to keep him.  There had been some Jason Bay to the A’s rumors, but those seem to have died down.  Not much that Billy Beane could do would surprise me.

Texas Rangers – The Rangers won the prize at last year’s deadline, sending Mark Teixeira to the Braves for a gaggle of prospects and youngsters.  This year, they don’t have that one big name to move, but they do have some tasty side dishes.  For starters, they have 4 – yes, FOUR – catchers drawing interest who are big league ready, roughly.

1.  Gerald Laird has the most experience and performance certainty but the least upside among the four.  The catching-starved Marlins seem to be the front runner for Laird, but both AL East behemoths (Sawx, Yanks) have been linked to Laird.
2.  Jarrod Saltalamacchia came over in last year’s Tex deal, he was a big time prospect in the Braves system, but it’s yet to be seen whether or not he can really stick at catcher.  The rumors for Salty are more vague than those for Laird, which makes me think he’s staying put, which makes sense – if I was in charge, I’d move Laird and hang onto the other three, figuring out who could cut it behind the plate, then keeping the others as backups/DHs/backup first basemen, at least until I figured out which ones were really keepers.
3.  Taylor Teagarden is a really nice defensive catcher, and his bat is less Brad Ausmus/Mike Matheny and more someone who can actually help out a team with the bat.  The Red Sox are reportedly interested, as they should be.  Last Saturday, Wyatt and I discussed their options for replacing Varitek this offseason, and decided a trade was more likely than a free agent signing, figuring the Rangers were a good match.  I’m not sure if that will happen by the deadline, but they’ll definitely revisit it in the offseason if it doesn’t.
4.  Max Ramirez is probably the best hitter of the 4, but also has some questions about his defense.  He came over for Kenny Lofton at the deadline last year from Cleveland.

Manager Ron Washington has a wishlist, but GM Jon Daniels is too smart to mortgage the future for a futile run at 2 month rentals.
There have been some rumblings about Michael Young to the Dodgers, but I doubt they need him badly enough to pay the price.  Milton Bradley’s name has been tossed around, but I think he’ll stay put – Daniels would have to be bowled over to move him.  Same with pitcher Vicente Padilla.  Third basemen Hank Blalock is the Twins’ backup plan, and might go somewhere else before it’s all said and done.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (CA, USA) – As Wyatt covered this afternoon, the Angels already made a big deal today, bringing in Teixeira for Casey Kotchman and minor league pitcher Stephen Marek.  From their standpoint, it’s a deal you had to make – the price of the upgrade from Kotchman to Tex is significantly outweighed by the benefit.  The Angels have been rumored to be in pursuit of some of the lefties on the market, like George Sherrill or Jon Grabow.  Minor league slugger Brandon Wood has struggled in brief major league trials, but seems to crush minor league pitching.  He’s young enough to pan out, given the opportunity, and some team might bite.

Up Next:  NL East

Inquiring Minds Want to Know…

Today’s two big questions (in my mind):

• Will Wyatt ever blog?
• How will Rich Harden’s first start as a Cub go?

With regards to the first question: yes, I just don’t know when.

With regards to the second question, some wild speculation: 7 IP, 7 K, 2 BB, 2 H, (Edit: ) 1 R (earned), 94 pitches, W.

Edit: I didn’t realize this until after I wrote it, but that line is eerily similar to the one put up by Sean Gallagher, who the Cubs traded to Oakland in the Harden deal. Last night, Gallagher made his Oakland debut with a line of 7 IP, 7 K, 3 BB, 2 H 2 R (both earned), 96 pitches, W. Wow.

Cubs/A’s Swap

Well, I’m not exactly breaking the news, but the Cubs and A’s made a deal yesterday in which the Cubs added Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin for Sean Gallagher, Matt Murton, Eric Patterson, and Josh Donaldson.  It seemed to come as a surprise to some media types who SHOULD be in the know, but anyone who’s been checking the right spots would not have needed an inside scoop to see the Cubs making a deal for a good-to-great starting pitcher this month.

As a Cubs fan, I’m immensely pleased with this deal.  Earlier this season, I told Wyatt that I was not exceptionally worried about the Cubs making a trade this deadline that mortgaged their future – they just do not have much in the way of minor league prospect depth, so it’s not like they had some superprospect (see LaPorta, Matt; Price, David; Beckham, Tim; etc.) who it would have been foolish to deal.  Still, to bring back Harden (not to mention Gaudin) without touching Geovany Soto, Carlos Marmol, Jose Ceda, Tyler Colvin, OR Donald Veal seems too good to be true.  Gallagher is a nice, major league ready back of the rotation starter who could become something more.  I suppose there is some small chance that he turns into a nice Number 2 starter, and a minuscule chance he becomes something more, but in all likelihood, he’s just a nice pitcher, not a star.  Gaudin is only three years older and has a similar ceiling, without those small chances that he becomes a star, I suppose.

Murton and Patterson are both useful in their own right, but neither really had much future in Chicago, so it’s really difficult to feel like they lost much here.  They’ll both be useful pieces for Oakland, but Murton is limited to an outfield corner, and he’s a nice little red headed doubles and walks machine with no defense to speak of.  He knocks lefties around (career rates of .316/.389/494 agains them), not so much righties, although he’s serviceable against them.  He fits alright with this A’s team, which has had trouble to score some runs, as does Patterson, who can be an insurance policy for any situation in which Mark Ellis leaves via free agency after the year, although his second base defense is slightly below average.  As an outfielder, his bat is nothing to write home about, but again, he can probably help out this year’s A’s as a part-time outfielder, whether it’s platooning with Murton in left, or spelling Ellis at second without much dropoff at the plate.  Still, he’s 25 without much development left, and what he is right now is…useful, but not outstanding.  The last player in the deal, Josh Donaldson, is a catcher who owned the Northwest league last year for awhile, but in the Midwest league this year, in more at bats, he’s really struggled.  He’s got a long way to go to get to the majors at all, let alone start.

Lastly, on to Harden, the star in this deal.  There’s a lot that can be said here, but I’ll boil it down to this:  when healthy, Rich Harden is one of the 10 best pitchers in the league.  That “when healthy” bit is pretty serious, though, as he really does have some trouble staying off the disabled list.

So the A’s get some minor lineup upgrades for the near term and a young, cheap starter to plug into the rotation, but that seems a little low for Harden and Gaudin.  For the Cubs, it’s a relatively low risk proposition – if Harden breaks down, well, Gaudin is going to give you roughly what Gallagher would have, and as long as they were going to keep pretending Reed Johnson can play center, I can understand why they could afford to pass on Murton.  Patterson is no better than the 4th best second base option they have behind Mark DeRosa, Mike Fontenot, and Ronny Cedeno, and Donaldson is blocked by Geovany Soto now and for the foreseeable future in Chicago.

All that to say, I’m a little confused on what Billy Beane and the Oakland front office saw here – it’s a useful enough group of players, but for an ace and another useful pitcher, it just doesn’t seem like enough.

Hats of to Jim Hendry, who gave up significantly less than Doug Melvin did, and Melvin only got one pitcher, albeit one who is healthier than Harden in CC Sabathia.  It’s absolutely a worthwhile gamble.