Improving the Indians

The Indians have done what I would love to do if given the opportunity to be a general manager. They have themselves a starting pitching staff of ground ballers. Their projected starting pitchers are as follows (in no particular order)

Pitcher	Ground Ball % (2011)
Josh Tomlin	38.2%
Justin Masterson	55.1%
Fausto Carmona	54.8%
Ubaldo Jimenez	47.5%
Derek Lowe	59.0%

In order for these pitchers to have success (with the exception of Tomlin) is to have the defence turn those groundballs into outs. The Indians as they currently stand are not in a good position to field groundballs.

Player (Position)	UZR (2011)
Matt LaPorta (1B)	-5.9
Jason Kipnis (2B)	-5.6
Asdrubal Cabrera	-11.8
Jack Hannahan	8.7

Only Hannahan is a good defender. I am going to give Kipnis the benefit of the doubt as he is a converted outfielder who should improve defensively as he plays more 2B. Signing Casey Kotchman (1.6 UZR in 2011, and widely considered an elite defender) would solve the first base issue. That just leaves short stop as the main hole in the Indians infield. I propose a blockbuster trade that would shake up the AL Central.

TRADE ASDRUBAL CABRERA TO THE CHICAGO WHITE SOX FOR ALEXI RAMIREZ

Why the Indians would do this.

Ramirez had an 11.9 UZR in 2011, which lead all shortstops. He has been an elite defender for the last few seasons. Ramirez would provide the Indians the short stop they need. The offence that they would lose with Ramirez will be made up for with his glove.  

Why the White Sox would do this.

Ramirez hit just .269/.328/.399 last season and is a career .279/.323/.421. Cabrera hit .273/.332/.460 last season and is a career .281/.343/.414. The benefit for the White Sox in this trade is the additional offence they gain with Cabrera over Ramirez. Cabrera had more HR, RBI, runs, SB, doubles, and the same amount of walks in 2011. Put Cabrera in US Cellular field and he will be even better than he was with the Indians. The defence that the White Sox would lose with Cabrera would be made up for with his bat.

This blockbuster trade along with the signing of Casey Kotchman would give the Indians a much better chance to overtake the Tigers in AL Central.

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Trade and Free Agent Targets for the Padres

Petco Park home of the San Diego Padres is one of the toughest places to hit in all of the MLB. Pitchers love pitching there because of all the space. The Padres have two very good defensive outfielders in CF Cameron Maybin (9.5 UZR in 2011) and RF Will Venable (4.4 UZR in 2011). In order to make the following pitchers even more of a success in San Diego, the Padres need to get a left fielder that can also play excellent defence. This is fairly easy to do they just need to reunite with Tony Gwinn Jr (8.2 UZR in 2011). He along with Maybin and Venable will form one of the top if not the top defensive outfield in the MLB. This scenario would be heaven for fly ball pitchers. With that here are some starting pitching targets for the Padres. (Stats from 2011)

Free Agent Targets

Pitcher	ERA	Fly Ball %	HR/FB	HR/9
Bruce Chen	3.77	45.4%	8.1%	1.05
Javier Vazquez	3.69	46.1%	8.0%	0.98

Trade Targets

Colby Lewis (TEX)	4.40	49%	11.9%	1.57
Scott Baker (MIN)	3.14	44.7%	8.7%	1.00
Guillermo Moscoso (OAK)	3.38	55.5%	6.2%	0.98

Gambles

Scott Kazmir (2010)	5.94	43.8%	11.6%	1.50
Rich Harden	5.12	46.4%	15.6%	1.85

These starters would all have great success in Petco Park. Each of them gives up fly balls more than 40% of the time. Chen and Vazquez both already are successful pitchers and adding them to San Diego would make them even more effective.

 For a guy like Lewis his ERA is high due to him pitching in the bandbox in Texas. If San Diego was able to acquire him his ERA would lower, his HR/9 would drop he would have much more success with the Padres. Baker and Moscoso both play in pitchers parks in Minnesota and Oakland, but the added effect of the defence San Diego could provide would make their number even smaller.

The gambles on Kazmir and Harden would be very high risk, very high reward. If Kazmir was able to return to the ace he was in Tampa, the Padres would love that. The risk is that he flops and costs the Padres games early in the year. He is a good gamble to take in my opinion. Harden has the stuff to be an ace. The issue with him throughout his career is injuries. If he can stay healthy for at least half a season, then the Padres could trade him at the deadline for a prospect.   

Overall these fly ball pitchers would all have great success in San Diego. The only risk would be the money required to sign the players and the players given up in trades. In my opinion if I was a GM I would take a look at these guys and see if I could bring them into the organization. If they have success great, the Padres could be contenting with them. If they’re not contending, but success is happing for the pitchers, than deal them at the deadline for some younger talent. The opportunity cost of getting these players would be worth it for the Padres. The Padres don’t plan on contending this season so why not gamble on some players and see if you can?

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Does CJ Wilson Deserve $82.5M???

What do those two men above have in common, other than being struggling right handed pitchers in the AL East, is that they each signed contracts for 5 years $82.5milllion. I have been hearing rumours that another pitcher CJ Wilson is looking to join them in the $82.5 million club. This post here will analyze how Wilson stacks up to these pitchers, comparing careers before the contract and the walk year of the contract.

We will begin by looking at the players career before signing their big deal and see how Wilson stacks up.

Career before big deal was signed (Standard Stats)

Pitcher (Years, Seasons)	Won-Loss Record	ERA	Games/ Starts	Innings(IP)	Strikeout(SO)	Walks   (BB)
Wilson(2005-2011, 7)	43-35	3.60	325/73	708.0	637	295
Lackey (2002-2009, 8)	102-71	3.81	234/233	1501.0	1201	441
Burnett (1999-2008, 10)	87-76	3.81	215/211	1376.1	1278	568

Obviously Wilson has fewer counting stats (Games, Starts, IP) because he has only been a starter for the last two seasons.  That should help Wilson as his arm will be less taxed than the other two. Wilson will be the same age as Lackey was when he signed his deal (30, Burnett was 31), so age has no impact. I feel that since Wilson has pitched less that, which will help him to get $82.5M.

To put them on a more level playing field so we can make a better analysis of the numbers. Let’s look at the last two seasons before each pitcher signed their deals.

Pitcher	Starts/IP	ERA	WHIP	SO/9	BB/9	ERA+
Wilson (2010-2011)	67/427.1	3.14	1.215	7.9	3.5	142
Lackey  (2008-2009)	51/339.2	3.79	1.251	7.1	2.3	117
Burnett (2007-2008)	59/387.0	3.93	1.267	9.5	3.5	110

Looking at those numbers it’s easy to see that Wilson is the best of those three pitchers. He had more starts, best ERA, best WHIP, and best ERA+. His strikeouts/per 9 are just a tad better than Lackey and his walks/per 9 are high but the same as Burnett’s.  Looking at those numbers Wilson most definitely deserves $82.5M if not more.

There is one more set of numbers I want to look at, and that is each pitchers walk years. I want to look at walk years because of a personality trait called recency effect. Recency effect causes people to value others based off their most recent occurrence. So GM’s may have valued Burnett, Lackey and maybe Wilson based off their most recent season prior to free agency. 

Pitcher	Starts/IP	ERA	WHIP	SO/9	BB/9	ERA+
Wilson (2011)	34/223.1	2.94	1.187	8.1	3.0	152
Lackey  (2009)	27/176.1	3.83	1.270	7.1	2.4	115
Burnett (2008)	34/221.1	4.07	1.342	9.4	3.5	104

Clearly by those numbers Wilson is head and shoulders above Lackey and Burnett. The best ERA of the 3 by about a full run, the lowest WHIP, tied with Burnett for most starts (they both lead the lead in their respective seasons). His ERA+ destroys Lackey’s and Burnett’s. Looking at those numbers its fairly easy to see that Wilson definitely deserves at least $82.5M if not more.

Overall looking at the numbers, Wilson is far better than Lackey or Burnett. He has pitched the least amount because of his seasons as a reliever, but that definitely has helped to keep his arm fresh which should hopefully keep him off of the DL. To conclude, I feel that CJ Wilson when compared to AJ Burnett and John Lackey deserves at least the $82.5M that they got. I believe that Wilson should get even more than that. My prediction is that Wilson will get a 5 year $95million contract with an option for $20M.

Comments are appreciated let me what you think and how I can improve. You can follow me on twitter @PaulBerthelot and you can "like" Ol Ball Game on Facebook just click on the link. Thanks