Rangers deal Young, Acquire Eaton: Why? Why?

This deal makes me feel like Nancy Kerrigan. In an apparent attempt to improve their pitching, the Rangers remove a substantial building block from that very area. Adam Eaton has an ERA+ of 92 in his career, which is his ERA adjusted for ballpark and league (100 is average). Last year it was 90. A somewhat rough interpretation of it is that it means he performed about 90% as well as an average pitcher. Really, that performance is about replacement player level, which means they could have likely used someone like Benoit and expected similar results.  In other words, don’t be fooled by Eaton’s reasonably attractive ERA because that stands to increase dramatically now that Eaton has to deal with Ameriquest field and the DH.  He throws hard, but he has yet to convert that into being a good pitcher.  Worst of all, he’s going to be a FA after 2006 and he’s going to make around 4 million dollars this year.

Before the Rangers acquired Chris Young, he was basically valued at nothing.  The Rangers traded Einar Diaz for him, and by that point it was even obvious to John Hart that Diaz would not amount to anything.  Shortly after being in the Rangers system, he changed his throwing motion and gained a lot of velocity.
According to reports he threw in the mid-80s prior to arriving at Texas.  With the Rangers, he threw in the low 90’s consistently, occassionally hitting 94 on the FSN radar (which is probably 92 or 93). He was a flyball pitcher and did not learn the sinkerball that Hershiser was known for teaching many of the pitchers while he was the Rangers’ pitching coach.  His GB/FB ratio for his 200 IP career is 0.68 (the average is ~1.2).  In other words, he’s not well suited for the Rangers park which has a homerun PF of ~1.2 (according to the Weighted Park Factors from 2003-2005 in the Transaction Oracle).  Nevertheless, even if he gives up a few more homeruns he’s still as good as Eaton.

The Rangers are also adding Otsuka, which is nice.  But Otsuka and Takatsu’s stats from last year show that they might have deceptive deliveries and while they’re still serviceable pitchers they’re not the all-stars they looked like in 2004.  I could be off base as I don’t know much about Otsuka, but his 2005 stats certainly show cause for concern.  The Rangers can use bullpen depth, but not at this price.  They already have a good closer, and Almanzar and Frankie Francisco should provide a lot of help (and limit Shouse to ONLY facing lefties, when he’s exceptional).

This is a bad trade, even without considering we’re giving up Adrian Gonzalez, a good defensive 1B who hit .338 in AAA!  He doesn’t walk too much, and he doesn’t have a ton of HR power, but he’s a very nice player who is ready for the majors now.  He’s projected to hit .2641/.318/.421 next year in Petco, which is about average (average OPS last year in San Diego was 733).  That’s not great for a 1B, but it’s pretty good when you consider that 1B is good at defense, you’re paying him the minimum and have him locked up for half a decade, and he’s getting better.  Even if the Rangers weren’t going to keep Gonzalez, surely they could have gotten better than this.

Long story short, this is an awful trade for the Rangers, possibly the worst of the offseason.  The Rangers were trying to improve their pitching.  But the help at bullpen is likely not going to make a huge difference.  Gonzalez was their most tradeable commodity; after all, he cannot become a FA for 5 more years.  They dealt him (and Sledge, a serviceable 4th OF who is not making much) for a reliever who isn’t likely to be too much better than league average.  With that they were lucky enough to also get worse in the SP department.  Chris Young doesn’t fit Ameriquest Field well, but he’s still a very
nice pitcher. He’s also scheduled to only make 1.1 million for the next 2 years, with a club option for 2008.  Even if the Rangers decline the club option they can take Chris Young to arbitration from 2008-2010 and pay him considerably below market value.  Eaton is going to make almost 4 times as much next year as Chris Young is going to make next two years.  Eaton’s ERA was about 0.4 runs worse per 9 innings than league average in Petco.  Chris Young’s ERA was a little more than 0.2 runs per 9 innings better than league average.  The difference between the 2 pitchers is about 0.6 runs per 9 innings.  Both have some injury concerns.  Assuming they both pitch around 180 IP, Chris Young will be about 2 wins better than Eaton.  Both 2 wins would have been valuable if they were serious about catching Anaheim and Oakland this year.

Jeff K.’s take

What have we wrought here in our short life at the Blogpark in Arlington?  When the tagline “Where Rangers fans come to pray for pitching” was born, it was conceived as a funny one-liner that every Ranger fan (and 90% of casual baseball fans) would understand and hopefully, mildly chuckle at.  It was never intended as an ideology to follow no matter what the circumstances.  Jon Daniels, why hast thou forsaken us?

Now, over the next few days, you’re going to hear a lot of people calling this an atrocious trade.  To be honest, I’m not going to try to persuade you otherwise, even though I don’t have visions of a nightstick colliding with my knee, as Spivey does.  What I would like to do is take a slightly deeper look at the players involved. 

As we think we know as of right now, the Padres send a player to be named later (reported to be Billy Killian), Adam Eaton, and Akinori Otsuka to the Rangers for Chris Young, Adrian Gonzalez, and Terrmel Sledge.  On the face, a fleecing of young Master Daniels by what Rangers followers are surely imagining as a Dickensian evil-doer; I picture Jon stepping up to Fagan, er…Towers, holding out his bowl of pitchers, and asking “Please Sir, may I have some more?” Only in this case, Mssr. Daniels is sent back to his table to consume a gruel consisting of Adam Eaton and Akinori Otsuka, after the cruel Towers sieves all the Chris Young out of the meal. 

Incoming:
I honestly have no opinion on Billy Killian.  Looking at his statistics at Baseball Cube, the only thing that strikes me is the bizarre jump from Rookie League to a 3 game stint at AAA at the ripe age of 18.  He only had 37 ABs last year in A ball (and a total of 179 in his two-year professional career).  The son of a part-time scout for the Padres in Michigan, he was drafted out of high school as the Padres 3rd-round pick in 2004.  Baseball America ranks the Padres’ system at #27, and Killian comes nowhere near the page (the “Best Defensive Catcher” rank goes to Humberto Quintero). 

Dallas/Fort Worth sports radio is pointing to Akinori Otsuka as “what could turn this deal into a great one”.  We might want to throw the brakes on there, guys.  There are certainly things to like about the man.  A career K/9 ratio of 9.45, solid peripherals in both seasons in American baseball, and a 1.56 G/F ratio (1.73 in 2005) are all positive signs.  There are also things to worry about: 34 years old, a K-rate that dropped by nearly two strikeouts per nine innings last year, and a pretty large jump in walk rate.  Spivey points to a possibility of a strange delivery that batters are catching on to.  A change of leagues would certainly help with that, and if Otsuka can keep the ball down as he’s done for two seasons, then he’ll be a solid member of the Ranger bullpen.

Adam Eaton.  The man once traded for the immortal Andy Ashby.  What can I say about Adam that hasn’t been screamed from the hilltops here at the Blogpark already?  28 home runs in a pitcher’s park in a pitcher’s league?  A 5.09 road ERA in 2005?  A G/F ratio that has been below 1 three times in the last 5 years?  A pitcher who was reportedly asking for a 3 year/$27MM extension from the Padres?  This is someone you run from, Jon, not someone you run towards.

Outgoing:
If you find anyone who thinks of Terrmel Sledge as anything other than a future fourth outfielder, you should either punch him in the mouth or marry her, because any woman who has an opinion on him that is outside the Montreal or Washington DC metro areas is someone that needs to be over represented in the gene pool.  Sledge turns 29 in March, and he posted a .200 IsoP in 2004.  There. 

Adrian Gonzalez is the player that I least like to see in this deal, but probably the lynch pin to getting it done.  Gonzalez is a Mark Grace clone.  Above average defensively at first base throughout his professional career (at least according to scouts), he was unimpressive in 150 ABs in 2005.  However, he acquitted himself admirably in 2004 in AAA, when he was 22, putting up an .821 OPS.  In 2005, he posted a .960 OPS, 223 IsoP, 44 Ks and 32 walks in 328 ABs.  Sure, he’s stuck behind Mark Teixeira, but this is the kind of person that you either find a place for or deal for something valuable, not a solid reliever and a starter who will likely blow up in his only season for you and then leave via free agency.  This won’t be a Mark Grace/Rafael Palmeiro situation for one reason: the Rangers kept the better player.  However, they will rue this day.  One thing to note is that while Oklahoma City is a pitchers’ park compared to the rest of the PCL, the PCL as a whole is a hitters’ league.

Finally, we come to Chris Young, whose inclusion, according to the Dallas Morning News report, is what made this deal go.  Spivey has a more detailed discussion of Chris Young than I’d like to go into here, except to point out a few things.  He’s a known, cheap quantity as far as payroll goes over the next two years.  In 2005, he posted a 7.49 K/9, 3.04 K/BB, .11 HR/9, and a .717 OPS against, all while pitching in the second best hitters’ park in the majors.  Also of note is that he posted virtually identical lines on the road and at home.  It’s been pointed out that he wasn’t exactly a groundball pitcher, but he may have been one of those guys who just “knows how to pitch in his home park” (archetype for TBiA: Rick Helling).  Then again, he may have been ready to blow up this year.  The point is that this is the kind of guy you hang onto, especially given that his peak years will come pre-arbitration. 

Briefly, I’d like to touch on Gerald Laird.  The Dallas Morning News article claims that the Rangers balked at including him in the trade, and it was only when they included Chris Young that the deal got done.  Keeping Laird instead of Young is flat-out insanity.  It’s obvious that Laird will not develop in Arlington.  Showalter is enamored of Rod Barajas, and Laird is already 26 years old.  He posted a .942 OPS in Oklahoma City last year, and if you’re not going to play him, deal him.  A trade of Sledge, Gonzalez, and Laird is much more palatable to me, especially since a young catcher is coming back.

As I said at the beginning, this is certainly not a trade I approve of.  The rotation looked better this morning than it does now, it looks markedly worse for next year, and all at the cost of a near-certain major league regular first baseman and fourth outfielder.  Will I be Chicken Little?  No, but my enthusiasm for Jon Daniels has certainly been tempered.