Attack of the Trout

By The Common Man

Last night, Mike Trout reminded us that he is, indeed, very good at baseball and going to get even better, hitting two homers off of a clearly overmatched Anthony Vasquez. In doing so, he became the 9th youngest person in baseball history to hit two homers in a game. Here’s the list:

Youth Should Be Served

By The Common Man

The Common Man believes that children are our future. If you teach them well, and let them lead the way, they’ll show you all the beauty they possess in side. At which point, you should totally capture that beauty and use it to better your franchise for the stretch run, which is what the White Sox and the Angels should definitely be doing.

The Sox may be finally getting it. With AJ Pierzynski out, they’ve been forced to turn to 25 year old Tyler Flowers, who has been waiting in Charlotte for three years for this shot. He’s making the most of it, hitting .273/.375/.473 in 64 plate apparances, with 2 homers. He’s also thrown out 26% of basestealers, a better percentage than either Pierzynski or Ramon Castro could muster this season and is even controlling balls in the dirt well. AJ, who has otherwise done a fine job at the plate this year, may find he doesn’t have a job when he gets back from his wrist injury.

Likewise, with Carlos Quentin recovering from a shoulder sprain, Dayan Viciedo has finally debuted for the Sox this year, going 2-for-3 with a homer and three RBI, and helping the Sox sweep the Mariners to take over 2nd place in the AL Central. The Sox have needed a powerful bat to pick up the slack left by Adam Dunn this year. Viciedo would seem to be that guy, and could transition easily into Juan Pierre’s spot in LF next year.

Power Rankings Comments, Bonus Links and Snark

By The Common Man

First of all, a belated happy Fathers’ Day to all the dads out there. The Common Man didn’t mean to, but he celebrated much of his Fathers’ Day by being an absentee parent, allowing his own father to take The Boy and be a grandpa for much of the afternoon. Meanwhile, TCM was writing, watching the Twins, and cleaning up after an un-birthday party the day before. He was also working on his power rankings comments for ESPN, upon which he expounds every week in this space. So please, enjoy this special message on the Angels and the White Sox. Plus, there will be some bonus links at the end.

ESPN Power Rankings Comments Explained

By The Common Man

Rankings are powerful things, which is why ESPN does not entrust us with a vote in theirs, since The Common Man would probably end up putting the Twins 42nd and the Giants in “whiniest” place. But they do let us provide the comments. And every week, TCM expands on his thoughts in the power rankings for those teams that aren’t represented in the SweetSpot Network. So without further ado, here’s bonus coverage of the White Sox, Angels, Marlins, and Pirates:

Power Rankings Comments Explained: The Torii Hunter Problem

Torii Hunter: .240/.322/.375. He has a below-average bat for right field, with average defense. And he's still owed about $30 million through next season.

Seeing as how the Angels are the same team who knowingly, inexplicably took on the Vernon Wells albatross and the obligation to pay him $81 million over the next four years -- and actually gave value for the privilege -- it's easy to forget that they've committed $36 million for 2011 and 2012 to a remarkably similar albatross. Right-handed rather than switch hitting, but: some power, below-average on-base skills, declining speed, no longer possessing the range to play center.

Power Rankings Comments Explained: American League

By The Common Man

It’s time for another round of ESPN Power Rankings, which means it’s time for TCM to expand on the comments he submitted for the uncovered AL squads in Los Angeles and Chicago. As a quick primer, TCM wants to reiterate that he does not have anything to do with the actual rankings as presented by the ESPN overlords. If your problem is with where your team ranks (and really, why would anyone actually care about that?), complain elsewhere. If you want to complain about the comments, brother, you’re in the right place. OK, on to the Angels and White Sox:

AL Power Rankings Comments Explained

By The Common Man

It’s Power Rankings day again, so The Common Man is back to expand upon his thoughts within the rankings, this week on three AL teams, the Angels, White Sox, and Orioles.

Power Rankings Explained: American League

As he did last week, The Common Man wants to expand on his comments in ESPN's Power Rankings that came out today.  This week, TCM provided the blurbs for the three AL teams unrepresented in the SweetSpot Network, the White Sox, Indians, and Angels. 

Making It Up to the Angels

By The Common Man

Last night, The Common Man had to submit his comment on the Angels to the overlords of ESPN’s Power Rankings, and…well, TCM failed. There’s really no other way to put it. TCM blew right past the five straight wins and the incredible performance of Jared Weaver and the surprising start of Howie Kendrick, and focused on a bunch of really negative stuff that keeps bugging the hell out of him about the Angels. Because, and TCM admits this freely, he’s really annoyed by this incarnation of the Angels and the haphazard way they have been constructed. But as penance for shortchanging them today, TCM will provided a detailed explanation of everything that is wonderful and incredibly frustrating about the 2011 Angels.

Angels X Factor: Kendrys Morales

By Bill

This is another in the series of "X Factor" posts we're doing in conjunction with ESPN.com's spring previews, the AL versions of which will go up sometime on Tuesday.

For a pretty old team, and one whose recent history has been nothing if not predictable, the Angels seem to have a whole lot up in the air right now. Dan Haren is coming off his worst year by ERA since 2006 (though he was brilliant upon making the move to the Angels); Ervin Santana seems to alternate decent years with awful ones, and is coming off one of those decent ones; the bullpen is just kind of a mess. But the one question mark that seems bigger than all the others right now is the status of the team's first baseman and best hitter, Kendrys (formerly known as Kendry) Morales.

While never exactly a premiere prospect, Morales made top-100 lists in 2005 and 2006. He looked like something of a bust after his first three partial seasons in the majors, though, hitting just .249/.302/.408 in his first 407 plate appearances and not doing much in the minors to suggest he was a lot better than that. Then in 2009, at age 26, he took over the full-time job and hit .306/.355/.569 (139 OPS+) with 34 homers and 43 doubles -- a performance which, coupled with pretty good defense, was good for 4.0 WAR, close to an All-Star level performance (though probably not justifying his fifth-place MVP finish). He was off to a similar start last year on May 29 -- the power was down, but you might've expected that to jump back up as we entered June and July -- when he managed to fracture his left leg while celebrating a walk-off grand slam.

Morales missed the rest of last season, of course, and now will start the 2011 season on the DL. It's clearly a freak injury and didn't figure to affect his long-term potential, but now that he's still experiencing soreness ten months later, you have to wonder (or I do, as a complete novice as to all things medical) how long this will affect him, whether the soreness (in his plant leg when he bats right-handed, which is most of the time) will sap his power when he does come back, and how long it will take him to get back up into full game shape once he finally can play again.

While he's out, Mark Trumbo figures to be the guy at first base. Trumbo is 26 and, even after tying for the lead among all minor leaguers with 36 home runs in 2010, failed to make Keith Law's list of the Angels' top ten prospects and placed 8th on Kevin Goldstein's. Goldstein says his power is real, but that he offers little else. Considering he hit just .301 with a .366 OBP even in his big AAA year -- and this was in Salt Lake of the Pacific Coast League, an exceptionally hitter-friendly environment -- he could be a pretty big drain on the lineup from all the outs he'll be making, despite the home runs. Minor League Splits' Minor League Equivalency (MLE) Calculator suggests that Trumbo's 2010 in Salt Lake would translate to a .244/.300/.448 line in the bigs, well below average for a first baseman (especially one that plays poor defense).

This is a team with very little offensive firepower even with a healthy Morales -- the Angels' biggest offensive strength, if they can be said to have one, is their lack of a gaping hole at any one position except catcher, where Jeff Mathis continues to exercise his threatening hold on Mike Scioscia's mortal soul -- and with Trumbo in Morales' place, it goes from "uninspiring" right to "just plain weak." The Angels figure to have trouble competing with the Rangers and A's this season anyway, but if they're going to do it, it'll take a heavy dose of a healthy Morales to get them there.

The Latest Fiscal Waste in California

By The Common Man

Last night, TCM went out to get a new computer and have dinner and by the time he got home, the drama over the Vernon Wells/Mike Napoli trade was largely over.  Having missed out on the fun of Tony Reagins' career suicide, TCM thought he'd offer his thoughts today.  Friend of the Blog, James at True Grich, is pretty bullish about the trade,

Pundits are blasting the deal and I couldn't be happier. The way I see it, the talking heads of baseball are often wrong and when this many of them are so sure the Angels did something horrible, it just makes me smile.

I'm smiling because I won't have to watch Juan Rivera resemble a penguin in quick sand while trying to catch routine fly balls. I'm smiling because Vernon Wells just might bring a little swagger back to Anaheim.

I'm smiling because I am putting my rose colored glasses back on and looking at this addition as a step in the right direction. I know some people have issues with his contract, but right here, right now - I'm only focusing on the fact that the Angels just got a little bit better offensively and defensively.

Alas, James, you'll have to count The Common Man in with the rest of the pundits and forgive him if he's not quite as ecstatic.

This trade makes the Angels even more top-heavy, and brings in a non-elite player at an extremely elite price.  Wells, as has been noted everywhere else, is owed $86 million over the next four years, including another $20 million this year alone.  There is almost no way that Wells, now a corner outfielder and 31 years old, is going to be worth that money when he's even less mobile defensively and 36.  And don't think there's a chance in hell that the Angels will be able to move that contract before 2014 (and then, only with significant financial relief as part of the package).  Fewer and fewer teams are being run with the kind of short-sightedness that seems to have infected the Angels.

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Excellent Angels blogger Garret Wilson, at Monkey With a Halo, writes that this is not a franchise killing deal for LA, given "after 2012 they have almost no guaranteed money on the books... like literally nothing aside from $4.5 million in option buyouts for Ervin Santana and Dan Haren."  While technically true, there's little to no chance that Reagins and Moreno are not going to pick up those options, meaning the Angels would already be committing $49 million to three players.  And keep in mind that, on top of that, Kendry Morales will be in his third arbitration year.  Even with the prospect of some salary inflation, that's a ton of money.  While the Angels have a decent farm system, and perhaps the best prospect in baseball in Mike Trout, they will still have to fill out some of the rest of their roster (especially their pitching staff) with expensive free agents.

As for production, it's unclear exactly how much Wells still has in the tank.  Moving to an outfield corner will help his defense, but his power spike came during a huge offensive explosion in Toronto, and it's doubtful that that is going to carry over given he hit just .227/.301/.407 outside of the Rogers Center last year. 

Toronto, meanwhile, has taken on two one-year commitments at $5.25 million (Juan Rivera) and what will probably be between $6-7 million in arbitration (Mike Napoli).  Rivera is likely gone after this season, and may not be a productive player in 2011.  However, his power is still real and he may experience a similar boost from the Rogers Center that Wells got last year.  That would help him to go back on the market as a Type A or B free agent, and allow the Blue Jays to squeeze some extra value out of him, in the form of a draft pick.

Meanwhile, Napoli is the big prize here, with legitimate 25 homer power out of the catcher position.  And, as he read yesterday (and promptly forgot where, if you know, drop TCM a line and he'll give it its proper attribution), Napoli's actually thrown out a higher percentage of baserunners than Angels starter Jeff Mathis, and prevented past balls at a better rate.  Napoli also offers some flexibility to the Blue Jays, who can use him behind the plate until JP Arencibia is ready, put him at 1B once that happens, or let him just DH and rake.  Again, with the power Napoli has shown in the past, surge of home runs is entirely possible in Toronto.  Last year, even spending 70 games at 1B and with his OBP down, Napoli was a 2-3 win player.  Look for him to eclipse that in 2011, and probably be even more valuable than the man he was traded for.

Alex Anthopoulos has taken advantage of a desperate Angels franchise who has been frustrated by  their inability to land big-name free agents this year, and who essentially announced with the Dan Haren deal last year, that they'd be remaining competitive this year.  It was an amazing trade for Toronto that has TCM wondering how long AA was able to hold his poker face before calling Reagins back to accept, so as not to spook his mark.

Despite this clear victory for Toronto, Los Angeles will likely be better in 2011 as a result of this deal simply because it gives Mike Scioscia a person he'll actually write into the lineup regularly who is better than Juan Rivera.  As Scioscia seems hell bent on playing Jeff Mathis and, with the return of Kendry Morales, there was no real spot for Napoli other than DH (where the Angels were exploring additional free agent options to further block him).  So at bats would have been few and far between.  The addition of Wells will allow Scioscia to move Bobby Abreu to the DH spot, while sporting an excellent defensive outfield with Peter Bourjos in CF and two former CFers (Wells and Torii Hunter) flanking him.  But it still doesn't excuse the long term damage to this franchise's health, nor would it have been necessary if Scioscia and Reagins had deployed Napoli correctly and Moreno and Reagins not failed so miserably over the rest of this offseason.

Now, if you'll excuse him, The Common Man has a 1999 Honda that he bought in in 2004 for $47,000, mistakenly believing it was a Mercedes.  He's going to call Tony Reagins this afternoon about assuming ownership and the payments.

3 Questions: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

It wasn't a very long time ago that you could sit there on March 31 and just pencil the Angels in for the AL West division title. But they've taken a step back over the last year or so, while at least two of their division-mates have taken large steps forward. This winter, they seem to have taken the "wait and see wait and wait and wait" approach to improving the ballclub. What will it mean for 2011?

1. What on earth are they doing?
Well, I suppose "nothing" is the answer, but the question is: why?  Coming into this offseason, the Angels were fringe contenders in a very winnable division who appeared to have the most resources in the division.  They were favorites to land Carl Crawford, then Adrian Beltre, and have been linked now and again to a number of other big names.  But as The Common Man noted in ranking their offseason 30th out of 30, none of that happened.  They've added nothing at all except two relief pitchers (only one of them any good) who aren't likely to have a whole lot of leads to protect.  They do presumably get Kendry Morales back for a full season, and that's good, but that's it. In the end, Arte Moreno, once one of the fan favorites among owners (not that that's saying a lot), and Tony Reagins and company end up looking like overconfident tightwards who were way, way behind the curve of the new, apparently post-recession baseball economy. 

This is a team that wasn't as good as the A's or Rangers last year, and that sat back and simply got older while those two teams got better.  This is a team of guys in their late twenties to mid thirties that, if there's a reason for its being constructed this way at all, was built to win now, not to wait for Mike Trout to come around a year or two or three down the line. And they're just not very well set up to do that.

On catcher defense: Where's the tipping point?

For the second in our series of guest posts here at The Platoon Advantage, we are lucky to have Zach Sanders, who writes at too many places to count, including some of our favorites like Fangraphs.com, BaseballDailyDigest.com, and rotohardball.com.  Plus, Zach runs our fantasy football league.  In light of our discussion yesterday of Buster Posey's value, Zach's offering here seems very timely.

Even though we don’t have a perfect measure of what a catcher brings to the table defensively, that doesn’t mean that we don’t factor it in when evaluating a backstop. However, we don’t need to over exaggerate things just because the defensive player in question is a catcher.

Teams get all excited when they have a good defensive catcher, and many teams focus on finding a backstop who isn’t going to cost them games behind the plate. For that matter, they probably should, because finding a good offensive catcher is hard to do. But, if teams do find a catcher who can get it done in the batters box, they should probably play him, because offense and defense should be weighed equally.

Take Mike Napoli for example. Mike Napoli is a very good hitter, never having a wRC+ below 110. Yet, if not for injuries at multiple positions, who knows how often Napoli would have even seen the field? There must be a darn good reason, because Mike Scioscia’s a genius, right? Well, Scioscia didn’t like Napoli on the defensive end, and apparently couldn’t give less of a crap about what he does for the team offensively.

In 2009, Napoli was a 3-win player if we don’t factor in defense. Even if he was a very bad defensive player, say 10-runs (1 win) below average bad (which he was), he would still be a solid everyday player. Jeff Mathis, on the other hand, is a replacement level player player before a defensive adjustment. He would have to be the best defensive catcher in all of baseball to make playing him over Napoli worth your time. To drive the nail in even further, in the small sample that was 2010, Napoli was actually rated a better defensive catcher than Mathis.

Catchers are just like any other player. They play defense, and we place a value on it. That doesn’t mean we need to go crazy just because they touch the ball on every pitch. Yes, I am ignoring their ability to call games and handle pitching staffs, but we still don’t have much evidence that they have a big impact in that department. Even if we did, would a player like Mathis have a 10+ run advantage? I sincerely doubt it.

Big thanks to Matt Klaassen for 2009 catcher defense numbers.

Notes on a Lopsided Trade

Some notes on what has the potential to be an incredibly lopsided deal:

Do you really want your interim GM making this kind of franchise altering deal? The Common Man isn’t saying that Jerry DiPoto is in over his head, but he’s been on the job for less than a month and has never had experience leading a front office. And the first trade you want him to make is to deal your ace starter? Talk about being thrown in the deep end. TCM realizes that the D-Backs management had to sign off on this, but you can’t really expect this new GM to be on par with Tony Reagins can you?

If your hands are apparently tied by Haren’s no trade clause such that you cannot get a fair value for the pitcher, as Aaron thinks they were, isn’t it an entirely viable strategy to just hold onto Haren and try to either compete next year, or deal him then? After all, holding the course worked for the Padres.

Evidence that maybe Jerry DiPoto was the wrong guy to make this deal from today’s press conference: “I think he trails only Roy Halladay among major leaguers in total wins.” Um, no. No he does not, Jerry. Joe Saunders has 54 career wins. As of this morning, he is tied with Jeff Francis of the Rockies for 82nd among active Major Leaguers. Even if we are giving DiPoto credit for meaning “since Saunders came to prominence in 2008), Saunders is 13th. From 2009-2010, he’s 29th. From 2008-2009 he is 5th, behind Halladay, Cliff Lee, CC Sabathia, and Tim Lincecum. Perhaps what DiPoto meant is “He is second in American League wins between 2008-2009, behind Roy Halladay.” Because that would be a true statement.

Among players with more than 50 decisions, Joe Saunders is 15th on the active leaderboard with a .628 winning percentage (not the .630 that DiPoto claimed). Above him are luminaries such as Daisuke Masuzaka and Kevin Slowey. Perhaps Slowey’s trade value is higher than the Twins thought.

As embarrassing as this trade is ultimately likely to turn out for the D-Backs, it’s not the worst trade that a GM has made on July 25. That honor likely belongs to Allard Baird who, in 2001, dealt Jermaine Dye away in a three-way deal to the A’s. In it, the Rockies got three prospects from the A’s, and the Royals ended up with Neifi Perez (pictured here in a pose representing what he did and contributed to Kansas City baseball) and a lot of angry words from Rob Neyer. In a year and a half or so with the Royals, Perez would have a .279 OBP and made between $5.5 and 6 million dollars. Dye would hit .267/.344/.488 over that span, and make around $8.5 million. None of the prospects would really help the Rockies at all, but at least they were rid of Neifi Perez.

Also on July 25 of 1896, the Pittsburg Pirates dealt struggling 1B Jake Beckley to the Giants for promising 1B-OF Harry Davis and $1,000. Neither would do much for their new teams. Beckley was released early into the next season, but would catch on with Cincinnati, for whom he’d star for another seven years, and eventually make it to the Hall of Fame. Davis played well, but eventually washed out of the NL at the age of 25. He would reemerge with the new Philadelphia A’s in 1901, and be one of the first great American League power hitters through 1908 or so. (thanks to baseball-reference.com’s cool new Historical Transactions feature for these last two items).

Joe Saunders has two more arbitration eligible years left before he’ll be free to leave the D-backs. Though he only makes $3.7 million now, he’s sure to get a big raise because of those big win totals that DiPoto is so impressed by. Haren would have actually been under the D-Backs control for one season longer than Saunders, as his contract contains a club option for 2013 at $15.5 million.

This trade, as TCM outlined on Friday, is probably a good thing for the Twins, as they could not afford to keep Haren going forward. Now GM Bill Smith can focus on more reasonable options, including Ted Lilly or Fausto Carmona. The less said about the violent wife-beater Brett Meyers the better.