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Transaction Oracle
— A Timely Look at Transactions as They Happen
— A Timely Look at Transactions as They Happen
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Reds - Signed Cordero
Cincinnati Reds - Have reportedly signed P Francisco Cordero to a 4-year, $46 million contract.Actually, I'm not going to pile onto this signing at all. Does this push the Reds into serious contention? Probably not. Is it a bad signing given the realities of the market and the current situation the Reds are in? No.
The Reds were going to spend some money this offseason. Pitching of any type is a must for them and of all the pitchers on the free agent market this offseason, Cordero's arguably the best at keeping runs off the scoreboard. There aren't a lot of other needs that the Reds can comfortably attain on the market this winter and it addresses one of the most important things to do to maximize the value Dusty has with a team - present him a fait accompli as many places as you can. The most cost-effective way to build a closer is to grow them yourself, but given that Dusty will be the manager for at least 2 years, does anyone put faith in Dusty to evaluate a bunch of relievers or unsuccessful starters and figure out who has the best chance of long-term success? That's not what Dusty's for. Give Baker a team in which everyone knows who's starting and there's no secondary viable option anywhere and Baker does pretty well. That's also, of course, part of the problem because then your team doesn't have a lot of depth and injuries really hurt, but Dusty really can't be trusted to not confuse starters with solid backups.
I think for the Reds, this was the best signing of $11.5 million a year they could come up with.
2008 ZiPS Projection - Francisco Cordero
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W L G GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA
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Projection 5 2 71 0 70 61 26 5 27 80 3.34
2009? 5 3 73 0 72 64 27 5 27 78 3.37
2010? 5 2 71 0 70 63 26 5 26 75 3.34
2011? 5 2 71 0 71 65 27 5 25 73 3.42
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Opt. (15%) 6 2 76 0 78 62 22 4 23 95 2.54
Pes. (15%) 3 3 59 0 56 54 26 6 25 61 4.18
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If you figure a good closer is as valuable as an average starter, then the money is about right. And the Reds are DESPERATE for relief pitching. With this deal, their pen is now three-deep (if they trust Burton).
The corpse of Stanton spews worms at you and shouts HAR!
If you figure a good closer is as valuable as an average starter
There is not way anybody should ever figure this. Relievers with ERA(s) below 3.00 are a dime a dozen. The only problem is figuring out who they are going to be. I don't know how you are defining "average starter", but if you're talking about a typical team's #3 starter you would need an elite closer to get anywhere near the same value.
If Cincy can fill a few holes with cheap talent, and get a few bounces, they could compete in the Central.
I think that Brewer's are head and shoulders the best bet in the NL Central. And the Reds are also a long way behind of Cubs. Of course who knows what impact Jay Bruce may have, or even how much he will play.
But the Brewer's have Sheets, Gallardo, Capuano, Parra, Bush, Fielder, Weeks, Hardy, Braun, Hart, & Hall. This is a rather impressive collection of young talent.
These guys are all top 30 prospects in baseball right now and could all be all-star caliber players.
Won't Dusty still be there in the last year of Cordero's deal?
Ah, that's the rub. ERA is a highly volatile statistic, especially for relievers. A single three-run home run, averaged over 60 innings, raises the ERA by 45 points. Thus in any given season there are a number of relievers with ERAs under 3.00, but the number who can be expected to post an ERA under 3.00 is very small. Another way of saying this is that most of the relievers with ERAs under 3.00 are not truly that good -- just lucky. For example, Javier Lopez and Aaron Fultz had a better ERA+ than Cordero last year (43rd among relievers in 2007). All that means is that their bullpen mates bailed them out of jams more often than not.
A quick sort on the CHONE projections for 2008 suggests that Cordero (who himself doesn't project to an ERA below 3.00) is roughly the 17th best reliever in the majors. That's definitely not "dime a dozen" range, not when guys like Linebrink (projected 4.30 ERA) are getting $19M deals.
Another way of looking at it -- Cordero's +18.6 VORP in 2007 is almost identical to Byrd, the 75th best pitcher by VORP (120+ innings). Of course Byrd's 2.5 SNLVAR doesn't quite live up to Cordero's 3.2 WXRL, because Cordero pitches higher-leverage innings.
Fielder, Weeks, Hardy, Braun, Hart, & Hall
Ah, but do they have anybody who knows how to use a glove?!? They will have a very hard time winning with their current defensive set. Almost doesn't matter how many runs they score, because their pitchers will be exhausted by the end of the season.
After the two world titles, of course he'll still be there.
Ryan Dempster.
Those are surprisingly (to me) strong projections. Would have expected to see more decline in the numbers.
Me too, for a guy's age 33-36 seasons.
I can't get too worked up about this signing one way or the other. I've got nothing better for the Reds to spend $11.5 M on right now either. Just don't like long-term, big money contracts for relievers in general -- but Cordero has been quite consistently good. As long as the Reds don't poormouth when some high draft pick demands a signing bonus and as long as they don't realize that next year's FA class has the perfect player for them (whoever that might be) but they can't afford him because of this contract, then it looks like no harm, no foul.
Hardy is sure-handed and at worst average.
Regarding H Bailey, I am unimpressed. He looks like a high pitch count innings muncher that will be transitioned to the bullpen when he is with his 3rd team.
I recall some suggestion by one of the BP writers that something is wrong with him? Certainly his K/BB went in the toilet last year -- even his AAA strikeout rate was not as strong as I would have expected. Don't know what to expect of him next year, but at this point it is laughable to consider him on par with Buchholz or Hughes or Gallardo. He may still have that kind of potential, but there are good reasons for concern as well.
Hardy is sure-handed and at worst average.
Hart seems to be a good fielder as well, at least for one of the corners. But Hall looked bad in CF, while Braun, Weeks, and Fielder are all among the worst defensive players at their respective positions. Unless his defense improves, Braun is barely better than an average 3B. (He'd be a star DH, of course.) I don't know the solution to this, but I'm pretty sure that adding Kendall and LaPorta to the mix isn't going to help.
I think it gives a wide confidence interval and shows the volatility of relievers. Predicting reliever success is still very hard to do.
Yes, very odd. I think #18 points out that you do need to analyze more than one line, you need to consider OPT and PESS projections and be prepared for each to alternate over a 4 year period.
Maybe he's the Gene Larkin of pitchers.
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