Wednesday, May 15, 2013
MLBTR: Phillies to sign Carlos Zambrano to minor league deal
(www.mlbtraderumors.com)
posted on May 15, 2013 at 11:29 AM by RoyalsRetro (AG#1F) to carlos zambrano, free agents, minor league deal, phillies
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17 comment(s)
Get ready for WORLD WAR Z.
Read More...The Phillies have officially announced the signing of Carlos Zambrano to a minor league deal. He will report to extended Spring Training in Clearwater, Fla. Zambrano is represented by Praver/Shapiro, as shown in MLBTR’s Agency Database.
The 31-year-old Zambrano had previously agreed to a contract with the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League but never signed the contract as he continued to look for employment with a Major League team.
After spending parts of ...
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1 2 3 >Lincecum could be #1 on this list with a solid year. If he has a crummy year, I don't know he's on the top ten. Should be interesting to see what happens to him.
Choo's had injury problems, but I think they were of the broken hand or wrist variety.
Further, MVP candidates are rare, MVP candidates on the free agent market are even more rare. The opportunity to buy six wins with just cash is rare, and perhaps is reasonably valued a bit more highly by rate than the opportunity to buy two wins with cash alone.
That's about right, but to be fair all pitchers should expect to be injured at some point. But it doesn't look like a good class at all given how many of these guys are going to be wrapped up before they hit the market (Cano, Wainwright, maybe McCann and Lincecum).
If he's a 6 WAR player, he's worth $30-35M p.a., which will be declining soon. If you're paying him $25M, I don't see that much surplus to absorb the bad years at the back.
On one hand, when you sign a Cano-quality player (if you're close enough for him to be "the" final piece) - I suppose you tend to assume that you're going to be eating some backend yuck years, but my concern about a contract like the one Cano will get.... what if it's not the last 2-3 years you eat, but what if he does the rather frighteningly typical nose dive by 32-33-34?
I mean - Chase Utley is 33, and it doesn't like he's gonna play 100 games in a season again - and even then, he's now a 110 OPS+ player, not a ~135-140 player... Dan Uggla took a precipitous dip at age 31 and now has become a 'take my wife, please' player. Sure - there was the whole retirement thing, but Ryne Sandberg's last truly great season was at 31.
Cano just concerns me greatly because 2B would be a clear place the Cubs could look to upgrade (and Barney hits arb after 2013, I think)... Of course, Theo seems to be in love with defensive metrics -- so maybe he buys the nonsense about Barney being the 7th most valuable player in baseball (or whatever the ridiculous dWAR numbers say he was).
I would only agree with this if the Phillies are in the hunt this year making them think they could be in the hunt next year and if Halladay pitches like 2011 or before (no small feat). If not (and I don't think they will be able to challenge for the division...wild card, probably) I don't see a reason for them to take 20M for a single pitcher on an old, mediocre team.
Probably. Seems like most good players get locked up and don't enjoy FA these days until they're past their prime. In this year's class, the best of the bunch included:
Josh Hamilton: a guy who was a bust for several years because of substance abuse issues and has only twice played over 140 games in a year
Zack Greinke: a guy who walked away from the game for a year due to mental anxiety
Anibal Sanchez: a guy who missed the entire 2003 season with TJ surgery, then missed parts of three of the next four seasons due to injuries
BJ Upton: great talent, but a bit enigmatic in the clubhouse and in the effort category
That doesn't seem that unusual to me. Just looking at recent years these are the top free agents from ESPN's list plus this list for comparison purposes;
2013 - Cano, Wainwright, Johnson, Ellsbury
2012 - Greinke, Upton, Hamilton, Bourn
2011 - Fielder, Pujols, Darvish, Reyes
2010 - Lee, Crawford, Werth, Beltre
2009 - Holliday, Bay, Lackey, Pineiro
2008 - Teixeira, Sabathia, Manny, Burnett
2007 - A-Rod, Posada, Lowell, Bonds
2008 and 2011 arguably have three "sure things" in them but I think a 1-2 of Cano/Wainwright stacks up pretty well with the other years. The catch is that the previous year lists are after the season ended whereas the current year is before guys (e.g. Wainwright) sign deals that take them off the market. If Cano and Wainwright both sign before the season begins as is definitely possible then next year's class becomes pretty bad.
Yeah. Pretty much the best case scenario for modern 2B aging would be Joe Morgan, who remained reasonably productive right up until his retirement at 40. However, even Morgan was pretty much done as a star after his age 33 season, averaging like 2.5 WAR per year. Of course, any one of Joe Morgan's 5 peak seasons were better than Cano's very best year, so I'm comfortable believing that Cano's not really in Morgan's class as a player. 8/$200M looks like a pretty bad bet to me; if you're banking on a guy having Joe Morgan's decline phase to make the deal work, you're probably overpaying.
Assuming they want a reduced 2014 payroll and then will reinflate, then there's a lot of value in keeping people interested in 2014 so they'll still be around for the good times allegedly acomin in 2015. Cano's one of the few ways to do that, or rather not signing Cano would be strong signal to ignore the team.
Assuming they want a reduced 2014 payroll and then will reinflate, then there's a lot of value in keeping people interested in 2014 so they'll still be around for the good times allegedly acomin in 2015. Cano's one of the few ways to do that, or rather not signing Cano would be strong signal to ignore the team.
I think the ARod fiasco, and the ability to blame "big bad Boras" gives them the leeway to pass on Cano, as long as they make a strong offer.
Was playing around in bbref trying to find a 2B that didn't fall apart in his early 30s and either I just skipped over him somehow excluded him in my criteria... beyond him, I was having a really hard time finding ANY 2B I'd want to have in his 32-33+ seasons.
It seriously looks worse than catchers -- catchers tend to age quickly, too -- but you have a much easier time building a case for a guy breaking the pattern of wearing out... Piazza, Fisk, I-Rod.... Catchers tend to go quickly, too -- but just perusing career leaderboards, it seems much easier to find catching exceptions than 2B exceptions. Even in different eras -- I seem to be having an easier time finding older catchers than older 2B.
The Cardinals will re-sign Wainwright. With Chris Carpenter possibly sent off to retirement, they need that extra ace to anchor their rotation.- Brock Hanke
Part of the problem is they have nowhere to go down the spectrum. 2B's generally don't have the arm for 3B or the bat for 1B/RF/LF. When they slip a little, they're utility IFs at best.
I suppose it's got to be the biggest factor -- and I suppose I can see it really being 'something special' in terms of shortening careers... never mind actually blowing out the knee -- but to a big extent, that blind-side take out slide certainly has to wear on the knees, perhaps even worse than the long-term effects of catching. It's just a fundamental stressing of the knee in a way it's really not designed to be stressed (as opposed to overdoing something the knee is just more designed to do, even if not so regularly).
30: 131
31: 115
32: 96
33: 66
34: 41
The other factor here is that 2B has been perhaps the weakest position, in terms of overall value, for at least the last 20-30 years. Since the best 2Bmen tend to be a bit weaker than the best players at other positions, it's also true that their decline will bring them down to merely average (or below) at a younger age.
That's true, and it's got to be a factor, but the logic does work for other positions. "When CFs get old they tend not to have the bat for LF/RF." But in real life it seems like they often do have the bat to move down the spectrum.
Also, the guys we're talking about - Alomar, Grich, Sandberg, Utley, whoever - these guys absolutely were good enough hitters to move to 1B/RF/LF if their hitting numbers had gracefully declined.
On edit > I just realized that the second point isn't very strong ... none of those guys, even with graceful declines, would have been worth big money as leftfielders, even if they would have been respectable starters.
Double edit > Also the first point isn't very strong either, as at least the move from CF to LF is a natural and easy one, whereas none of the potential moves for 2B are.
second basemen have a common body type of being smaller/slighter. that means injuries can happen more often and the recovery time longer
second base is a defense first position but play in a world where offense is better measured. so if a second baseman's offense slips even if the defense is ok a manager is likely to cast for options
accident prone position
as snapper mentioned, when a second baseman isn't a regular there ain't a lot of options
so you have a role played by guys who tend to be smaller than everyone else (generally), exposed to more risk of injury, who have a smaller margin of error on job security and once regular status is lost there isn't a fallback common in the industry
Except Carew stopped being a full-time 2B after his Age 29 season, starting zero games there after that.
Kent is the best case, and his age 31-39 was worth 32.4 WAR. At $6M per WAR that still doesn't get you to 8/200.
Is there any evidence in favor of the generalization? Is it true that smaller/lighter players have more frequent injuries, or spend more time on DL? Seems pretty unlikely....
You think the going price for WAR in 2021 will still be $6M? LOL.
I have no idea. No one does.
Maybe not, but it could be the going price for it today. You get a discount for advance purchase, which is to say that for the player there's a lot of value in the guaranteed money this many years out.
i am stating that because the position lends itself to smaller players 'and' there are more collisions that the combination generates that output. i don't have a query on days on dl by position and this is based on pure observation/gut instinct.
you don't think second basemen followed by catchers lead the clubhouse in injury days? gosh i would have to think so.
Well Cano has been worth about 21 WAR the last 3 seasons. Kent's 27-29 seasons get you only to 9. And by WAR Kent never had a season approaching as good as Cano's 2012 or 2010.
Gehringer had 6
Eddie Collins had 5
Morgan and Horsnby had 4
Kent, Biggio, Alomar, Whitaker, Randolph, Lopes, and Jackie Robinson had 3
Polanco, Loretta, Boone, Sandberg, Franco, Grich, Runnels, Schoendienst, Stanky, Gordon, Frey, and Buddy Myer all had 2.
...and that's the list.
Then how can you possibly have any opinion on whether 32.4 WAR should get a player $200M over 8 years?
I have no idea if 2B spend more time on the DL -- maybe, but it's not obvious to me. I feel pretty sure that a heavier 2B would, on average, spend more time on the DL rather than less, because avoiding impact is likely a superior injury-avoidance strategy than being strong and getting hit a lot.
* *
The general point here is that people are looking for theories to explain something -- shorter careers for 2B -- that likely isn't true. Here are the #s of 4+ WAR seasons for age 30 and 34 players:
30: 240
34: 92 (62% decline)
Here are the same #s for 2B only:
30: 31
34: 14 (54% decline)
I just don't see a reason to believe 2B decline faster than average. What I think is true is that all players decline much faster after age 30 than we generally think, because the players we remember best are those who had long, productive careers (and because most aging studies are afflicted by survivor bias).
I suspect selection bias in terms of who winds up at 2B plays a role. The very best athletes typically wind up at SS or CF, so 2B is left with the remnants; guys who throw righty and can pick it in the infield. The best hitters of that bunch get to have MLB careers. If you're starting with a less talented group, it's no surprise if they start to tail off earlier than other players.
I'd forgotten about Jeff Kent, but his last elite season came at age 34. From there through the end of his career, his decline phase was no better than Morgan's; worse actually.
Moving to 3B is not much of a slide down the defensive spectrum. More of a lateral move where the player's arm counts more but he no longer has to turn the pivot.
Interesting seeing Hornsby, Kent and Carew held up as good examples. Maybe poorer fielders age better.
I'm confident that if the best possible case, among many, many more flameouts, needs significant inflation to be worth $200M, you don't pay $200M.
Well, if Cano gives you Joe Morgan's 31+ career, 8/200 is probably a bargain. If he gives you Jeff Kent's, you'll probably break around even. If you get Lou Whittaker's, slight overpay at worst depending on $/WAR inflation. There are some positive precedents out there, and I'm starting to come around to the notion that 8/200 might not be crazy. Still a scary contract, but if you think you'll get ~30+ WAR from him, probably worth pulling the trigger. Even Alomar was worth 19 WAR from 31+, and Sandberg was worth 22.
That's because everone's last elite season comes at age 34 (or earlier). Since 1920, there have only been 155 4+ WAR seasons from players age 35 or over, less than 2 per season. That's considerably fewer than the # generated by ages 33-34 alone. And if we exclude 1B/LF/RF, there have been only 68 4+ WAR seasons in the last 93 years -- less than one per season. I think people have a greatly exaggerated sense of how common it is for players in their mid-30s to post elite performances (and I set the bar for "elite" pretty low at 4 WAR).
If I were signing Cano to a long term deal, I'd immediately shift him to third base. While he's been solid defensively at 2B, he has the tools to be awesome at 3B, and as a side benefit you may save him from falling off a cliff like most 2B do. Cano's arm and quick reactions would make him very good at third base, while his mediocre foot speed really limit his range at second base, especially his ability to range into the 3.5 hole.
Worst case he can almost assuredly play first base rather than being relegated to DHing.
i don't think here does. even with the surge in late career performance from 1994-2004 the aging curve held in broad terms
which is why in contract discussion threads you have folks protesting that a team is paying too much for age 37 seasons and the counterpoint being that the team is really paying for elite age 32 performance and accepting the tradeoff being that at age 37 the player won't be nearly as valuable (or something along those lines). i read that back and forth all the time these past few yearss.
Frightening when you think about handing out big contracts to FA class cream...
It means that you should really only spend big $$$ on a FA under 30... or -- if you spend on an over-30, you'd damn well better be JUST ONE PLAYER AWAY... not that this isn't long-time BTF groupthink :-)
I don't know what the reasons are, but you don't want to lock major funds into a 2B or a C after 32 years old. Sure, there's the Morgans and the Piazza's to prove the rule, but generally speaking, Robbie Cano is more likely to be Robbie Alomar than Joe Morgan.
Even if you sign him, it's still very likely that in 2 or 3 years you need to replace a lot of his production, but you'll have $200M less to address it.
Even if they sign Cano, he ain't giving them 6 WAR for very much longer. The production still needs to be replaced.
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