Worth The Risk

There are some baseball deals that are no-brainers. You know:

 

Acquire: Babe Ruth

Give up: $100,000

 

Then you have those baseball deals that make you think that the people doing them have no brains. Like:

 

Acquire: $100,000

Give up: Babe Ruth

 

Now, in truth, the Babe was somewhat of a trouble child. And he was reneging on his contract with the Red Sox. But that was some sort of dumb trade.

 

Not the point at all. The point is that these (or this) kinds of trades are outliers. Nobody argues about Milt Pappas for Frank Robinson. Nobody (especially out of Met fandom) is even discussing Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano*. And the truth is that because they don't inspire any discussion, they're really kind of boring. Not entirely boring. Rob Neyer wrote a book (Rob Neyer's Big Guide Book of Baseball Blunders) which heavily consists of really bad trades. Like Nolan Ryan for Jim Fregosi. But in general, they're kind of boring. You can make some real arguments about whether trading Aaron Heilman was smart. Not so much with Nolan Ryan.

 

* Not that anybody's discussing him either, but included in that trade was Joselo Diaz, who, as I recall, was at one time a relatively highly touted Met prospect. In the 5+ years since the Mets traded him he has reached the Major Leagues. For 7.2 innings. And an ERA of 9.39. (He's got a 14.77 minor league WHIP, so I wouldn't really expect to see much of him, henceforth.)

 

Not that this has to do with anything, but the Albuquerque Isotopes, the Dodgers AAA team, had a nice collection of former Met talent. Doug Mientkiewicz, Shawn Estes**, Scott Strickland, and Claudio Vargas all played for them this year. Mientkiewicz played alright for them, and actually spent part of the year on the Dodgers' bench.

 

Shawn Estes also pitched well, 3.07 ERA in 73.1 innings. Then something happened. My understanding (and I certainly could be wrong here) is that he thought that he merited promotion to the Dodgers, the Dodgers didn't, and he said goodbye. According to his Wikipedia page, "Estes claimed that he has not retired, but that he is simply unwilling to play AAA baseball."

 

I think the Mets should get him. I'm not kidding here. That's actually the point I'm too busy to get to because I'm doing a footnote.

 

Oh yeah, Vargas pitched well in 13 innings and Scott Strickland, who, by the way, has not pitched in the majors since 2005, recorded 32 saves, with a 2.98 ERA in 48 innings.

 

Now, what's weird about Strickland, who has not had much opportunity at the Major League level (he broke in 11 seasons ago and has 240 innings), is that for the most part he's been quite effective. In every season in which he pitched more than 18 innings, he's had an ERA+ of at least 116. For his career, he's got a 131 ERA+.

 

But it gets weirder. They can't think that he's just been luck y at the big league level, because without much exception, he's been quite good in the minors, too. He has a minor league ERA of 3.32. Last year, as I said, he had a 2.98 ERA. The year before that (also in AAA, this time with the Yankees Scranton team) he pitched 66.1 innings with an ERA of 3.53. Those ballclubs, especially the 2008 Yankees could have used a good, extra relief pitcher. But for some reason, Scott Strickland didn't get the call.

 

I don't want to belabor the point, but there's one glaring ballplayer who's getting in my way. LaTroy Hawkins gave the Yankees 41 innings at an ERA of 5.71. He got paid 3.75 million. Meanwhile, Scott Strickland has a 3.53 ERA in AAA. And remember, he's got a bit of a track record, too. His 131 ERA+ is much better than Hawkins' 104. I just don't get it.

 

Oh yeah, former Mets did pretty well.

 

** It's pretty cool to go to some great ballplayer who utterly dominated the game (Wagner, Ruth, Gehrig, Cobb, Pujols)'s Baseball-Reference.com page and see how freaking good they were. I don't even mean intense analysis (in the 7 years from 1910-1916, Walter Johnson had a 1.56 ERA), I'm referring to just glancing at how many of their numbers are in bold (signifying being a leader in that particular category).

 

Well, you can do the same thing with some less than awesome players. Shawn Estes had led the league in earned runs, walks and wild pitches.

 

The lesser players are usually cheaper. And worse. Which makes a lot of sense. But when they're a lot cheaper than proven commodities, they just might be worth it.

 

Take the 2009 Mets. They signed Gary Sheffield, a proven, if aged, slugger, for the minimum major league salary and he led the team in home runs (or tied, anyway). They got some serious bang for their buck. Now I know he was injured a heck of a lot of the time, but he was worth well more than the (relative) pittance that they gave him.

 

So I can't, for the life of me, figure out why people are against picking up veterans. I'm not referring to the Moises Alou's of the world, who are going to cost a pretty penny (and that's besides the doctor bills). I'm referring to the Gary Sheffields of the world. I don't even remember where it was that I heard this, but it seemed as though there was a big consensus that the Mets needed to forget about the aged. Which I just don't get.

 

Shelling out money is entirely different. You don't want to give Gary Sheffield (or Julio Franco, or perhaps Alex Cora) a big-money multi-year deal in the twilight stage of his career. But these cheap pickups of proven veterans have got to be good – both for the clubhouse and the diamond.

 

If the Mets are going to lose, I'd also rather it be with Daniel Murphy than with some aged non-Met. But extending spring training invitations to Edgardo Alfonzo, Shawn Estes and other mere possibilities might just net the Mets the 2010 version of Gary Sheffield.

 

And that's a lot more good than it is bad.