K-Rod (and cash) acquired; The cost? LH reliever Daniel Ray Herrera and low-A RHP Adrian Rosario

[COBrewerfan]

Betancourt's WAR is indeed -0.8. Brewers SSs are -0.6 overall, 2nd worst in MLB.

 

The Brewers' bullpen WAR is 1.4, which is 13th best in MLB. (Loe's WAR in +0.4, if you want to compare him to Betancourt.)

 

The Brewers' team WAR at 3B is -0.3, 5th worst in baseball.

 

It would be fair to say, to me, that SS or 3B are both much more pressing issues than the bullpen.

If you believe a made up stat you feel that way. Others say that pitching is much more important. Pitching saves runs that the offense does not need to score. Much bigger need.

 

 

[theavrock]

My question would he qualify as a Type A or B Fa . Brewers might be looking a nice set of Draft picks next June.

someone mentioned he is a type A I believe

[kramnoj]

If we ended up giving up not much in terms of prospects to get K-Rod, i'd credit Attanasio and Brewers fans as much or more than Melvin.

 

It's Melvin that has put together teams that the fans come to the park to see as well as watch games at home, resulting in a better TV contract. It's Melvin that has put together teams that have brought in revenue for Attanasio, that lets him give the green light to add extra payroll. And with the dynamic pricing test, the option to bring in additional revenue (admittedly not a huge factor this season, but it could add more revenue next season, again based on the popularity of the Brewers).

 

Attanasio and the fans absolutely deserve all credit due to them, but it's not like this happened without Melvin. It's Melvin that negotiated the trade, and put the Brewers in a position to make this trade.

[And That]

Pitching saves runs that the offense does not need to score. Much bigger need.

The offense scores runs so that the pitching can afford to give runs up. See what I did there?

[NievesNoNO]

I was definately suprised by this one! Mostly a salary dump for the Mets, so as others have said, I don't think we gave up anything significant. Not that our farm system has anything significant left anway. Nice move Melvin. I don't believe this stops us from improving at SS either. Honestly, why would they stop now? The chips are in the middle all ready. You don't want to be left wondering "what if" if you can aquire a legit improvement somewhere even if you lose some more "prospects" or overspend a little. I will be shocked if Yuni is still our shortstop 2 weeks from now.

 

As far as K-Rod after the season, I don't see why the Brewers wouldn't offer him arby. Some team will come calling with a multi-year deal to close. Even in the slim chance he accepts you could do much worse than K-Rod for 10 mil for a year.

 

With an upgrade at SS it's the Brewers division to lose at this point. St. Louis will be there to the end but I still believe the loss of Wainwright to start the season will be too much for them to overcome. The Cubs and Houston are done. Pittsburgh will falter and the Reds have been rotating through starting pitching the entire season.

 

Onward!!

[bjkrautk]

The one thing I don't get about this deal is how much better could DM's offer have been compared to other teams with an established closer? If the rest of his season's salary is being paid by the Mets, either a few teams balked at the risk, or the Crew has someone that the Mets liked more than their alternatives.

I wouldn't be concerned about that. The Mets were not in a position to be trying to create a bidding war. If it got closer to the deadline and other teams balked because of the contract situation then they could have really screwed themselves by trying to hold out for a slightly better package. They probably could have waited and seen if they could get more. I see it more as DM being aggressive saying hey will save you from that contract and them not being able to pass that chance up.

Something I didn't know about the K-Rod contract until Haudricourt mentioned it in his blog: the Brewers were not listed as one of the ten teams on his no-trade clause. The Mets couldn't move him to 1/3 of the teams in MLB without providing additional compensation (to waive the no-trade, if you could get him to waive the no-trade); depending on who the other 18 teams were (excluding Milwaukee and the Mets themselves), and how many of those teams would be buyers right away, then you start to understand why this deal looks so good from the Brewers perspective.

 

[FVBrewerFan]

Green won't be one of the PTBNL either. We have to understand the Mets NEEDED to trade KRod. The takers list was limited, since anyone who would be interested in him couldn't use him as a closer. (Well technically they COULD, but practically speaking....no.) Many of these teams already have set-up guys as good or better than KRod.

 

So the Brewers don't need to give the Mets anyone that is MLB ready, or close to it. As Melvin said, the players will have POTENTIAL of making MLB at some point. Well that's GM speak. Every minor league player has that chance, or they wouldn't be in the system. Think of guys in AAA that aren't in the Brewers plans, or guys in A or A+ that are borderline prospects. As someone said...a guy like Ross...

 

It won't be Gamel, Gindl, Green, Thornburg, Rivas, Peralta....guys like that.

[dlk9s]

Pitching saves runs that the offense does not need to score. Much bigger need.

The offense scores runs so that the pitching can afford to give runs up. See what I did there?

http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/4664/44ohiseewhatyoudidthere.jpg

[jhart05]

(Maybe this has already been said, but have to get back to work. Don't have time to read thru 11 pages right now.)

 

Is anyone else concerned over his 1.406 WHIP and 9.3 H/9?

 

Quote WAR all you want, but those are the first two stats I like to look at for pitchers and those really aren't that good.

 

Not saying I don't like the trade, just hoping he can improve on those numbers, and revert back to his 2010 form.

[Dragonbait]

I did a double take... thought this was a April Fools day thread...

 

Did not expect to land K-Rod (and I hate calling him that, but its faster to type that),

and didn't expect it to not cost us anything.

 

Wonder what St. Louis nation thinks of this, Dont they REALLY need bullpen help...

[FVBrewerFan]

Something I didn't know about the K-Rod contract until Haudricourt mentioned it in his blog: the Brewers were not listed as one of the ten teams on his no-trade clause. The Mets couldn't move him to 1/3 of the teams in MLB without providing additional compensation (to waive the no-trade, if you could get him to waive the no-trade); depending on who the other 18 teams were (excluding Milwaukee and the Mets themselves), and how many of those teams would be buyers right away, then you start to understand why this deal looks so good from the Brewers perspective.

Remember when the Brewers would automatically be one of those 10 teams?? You didn't even have to wonder, it was automatic.

[COBrewerfan]

Pitching saves runs that the offense does not need to score. Much bigger need.

The offense scores runs so that the pitching can afford to give runs up. See what I did there?

Yes but its easier to just not give them up.

 

 

[hawing]

Jim Bowden actually does a nice job for ESPN.com, but holy crap does this sentence make no sense at all. When talking about what NL Central teams need to do to keep up with the Brewers:

 

"The Cardinals need to acquire a starting pitcher, such as Heath Bell, and I think a healthy Rafael Furcal."

True, the quoted sentence above is problematic. But look at what I bolded: Someone at ESPN suggesting that the NL Central has to keep up with the Brewers. I know 97% of what ESPN says is knee-jerk, but that's just pleasantly different.

[JCREW]

My question would he qualify as a Type A or B Fa . Brewers might be looking a nice set of Draft picks next June.

someone mentioned he is a type A I believe

This Elias-rankings-reverse-engineered-spreadsheet (via MLBTraderumors) has him as a Type A, but only by a few slots. I don't know enough about the Elias system to tell what kind of performance would move him up or down on that list.

[And That]

Yes but its easier to just not give them up.

Given that teams, on average, score more than zero runs per game I don't think that's true in the slightest. I think it's very difficult to not give up runs.

[endaround]

Yes but its easier to just not give them up.

Given that teams, on average, score more than zero runs per game I don't think that's true in the slightest. I think it's very difficult to not give up runs.

The amount of runs you can score is unbounded, the amount you can save is bounded by zero. Hence scoring must be easier than saving runs.

[SoCalBrewfan]

So you realize what happened here, right? The Brewers added talent from a New York team, at very little cost, because the New York team couldn't handle the financials. If $5M is coming in, the Brewers are only on the hook for the option or buyout, and they are one of the few teams that can use K-Rod in the 7th with a straight face. It doesn't even add much to the bottom line for this year, and they should be able to take on more salary for an infielder.

 

There is of course a risk, either that circumstances evolve that they end up vesting the option, or that they tick off the player by avoiding the option, but Roenicke probably has previous history with K-Rod from LAA, doesn't he? (Or do I have my timing wrong?) They have to have a pretty good hunch that they can keep him happy even as they manipulate his usage to avoid vesting that crazy option. They may have even preemptively talked to Boras, who knows?

 

Now, a shortstop, please?

[And That]

The amount of runs you can score is unbounded, the amount you can save is bounded by zero. Hence scoring must be easier than saving runs.

Oh, no doubt.

 

But you usually need to able to pitch and hit well to win a lot of games. The 30ish inning that Loe will pitch the rest of the year aren't as close to important as the 500+ PAs between SS and 3B. In this case, replacing the offense is a much easier route to making the team better.

 

Adding K-Rod is maybe worth one marginal win. Replacing Yuni with even a replacement level guy is worth one win.

[theavrock]

(Maybe this has already been said, but have to get back to work. Don't have time to read thru 11 pages right now.)

 

Is anyone else concerned over his 1.406 WHIP and 9.3 H/9?

 

Quote WAR all you want, but those are the first two stats I like to look at for pitchers and those really aren't that good.

 

Not saying I don't like the trade, just hoping he can improve on those numbers, and revert back to his 2010 form.

Yea I saw that too. K-Rod has a BABIP of .342 so he may just be getting a little unlucky.

His K/9 is still at almost 10 and his BB/9 is a little below his career average.

I don't know a ton about the Mets defense, but an OF of Pagan, Murphy and Bay can't be that great defensively. I know the Brewers have some warts to, but maybe some of this is due to the defense behind him.

[Ennder]

Is anyone else concerned over his 1.406 WHIP and 9.3 H/9?

 

Quote WAR all you want, but those are the first two stats I like to look at for pitchers and those really aren't that good

 

Those are two of the most random stats you'll see for a pitcher over a small sample so I can't say they would ever worry me.

[tstads20]

Very true about the high WHIP. Ax had a high WHIP for a while too, doesn't mean he wasn't effective. When you allow a baserunner every time or every other time in limited appearances, it's gonna show up even if they don't score.

[endaround]

Axford actually has a high walk rate. WHIP just isn't that good because all pitchers will give up around 1 hit an inning on average. So what you really should look at is walk rate and K rate.

[bjkrautk]

Remember when the Brewers would automatically be one of those 10 teams?? You didn't even have to wonder, it was automatic.

That's part of what makes the no-trade so curious to me. Haudricourt speculates that the Brewers weren't on the no-trade due to the size of the contract when it was signed. Start to filter out the number of teams who could legitimately be buyers:

 

Boston (Papelbon 20/21 Sv.), NYY (Rivera 22/26; I assume the papers would have a field day if they traded him cross-town), TB (Farnsworth 17/19)

Detroit (Valverde 24/24), Cleveland (C. Perez, 21/22)

Texas (Feliz 18/22), LAA (Walden 20/26)

---

Philly (Madson 15/17 - DL; Bastardo 5/5), Atlanta (Kimbrel 28/33)

Milwaukee (Axford 23/25), St. Louis (Salas 16/18), Pittsburgh (Hanrahan 26/26), Cincinnati (Cordero 17/22 ...has blown his last 3 SvOpp)

SF (Wilson 26/30), Arizona (Putz 21/25 - DL)

 

...and you're down to 15 teams. Cross off teams with injured or questionable closers, who you'd assume are unwilling to take that kind of risk {LAA, Philly, St. Louis, Arizona}, and that list gets cut down even further. You have to figure that most of what's left are covered in the no-trade clause, so there's just no way that the Mets could get anything approching value for K-Rod.

 

The two teams that I wonder most about are in the NL Central. CoCo has blown his last 3 opportunities, all to teams within the division (2 against Milwaukee, 1 against St. Louis), and has been forced out of the closer role in the past (...that's how we got him). How willing are you to try and make this deal if you're the Reds? I can see the Pirates being one of the no-trade teams, much for the same reasons that the Brewers always used to be. If not, they have an All-Star closer, and a solid bullpen; this is a trade they could have made themselves with relatively little risk.

[FVBrewerFan]

It will be interesting to see if the Classies are willing to give up what it will take to get Heath Bell. (Although sliding into the pitcher's mound wasn't very classy, maybe that eliminates the Cards as a trading partner?) If you look around at the contenders, I don't see anyone who needs a closer as much as the Classies do?

[MadScientist]

My question would he qualify as a Type A or B Fa . Brewers might be looking a nice set of Draft picks next June.

someone mentioned he is a type A I believe

This Elias-rankings-reverse-engineered-spreadsheet (via MLBTraderumors) has him as a Type A, but only by a few slots. I don't know enough about the Elias system to tell what kind of performance would move him up or down on that list.

I don't think free agent types apply here, because his contract will be bought out, it won't expire. Also, even if it could apply, the Brewers would have to offer arbitration which they wouldn't do because K-Rod would likely accept it.

 

As long as he accepts his role as a setup man, and doesn't totally suck, this is a great deal for the Brewers.