The Unsexy Free Agents of 2007

by taiko on Jun 21, 2007 6:18 PM EDT

There was a game last night between San Diego and Baltimore that featured two starting pitchers that were waiver claims this past offseason, both of whom are havaing outstanding years: Justin Germano and Jeremy Guthrie. It made me wonder how many of these guys there are this year, contributing to the ML roster. When we talk about the scarcity of talent available among free agent starting pitching last offseason, we shouldn't ignore these guys.

Justin Germano, San Diego - 24 years old.
5-1 record, 2.63 ERA, 0.958 WHIP
Originally drafted by San Diego out of high school, was later traded to the Reds for Joe Randa, then to Philly for Rheal Cormier. Pitched full seasons in the minors in 2005 and 06, with a brief callup last year with Cincy. Has pitched in 9 games in the majors prior to this season. I'm not sure why Philly released him, though it's likely his number wouldn't be as good if they had kept him. He's not a high strikeout guy (4.5 K/9), and he's essentially a flyball pitcher (49% GB rate) who doesn't give up a lot of home runs (0.63 HR/9) and hardly any walks (better than 3/1 K/BB).

Jeremy Guthrie, Baltimore - 28 years old
4-1 record, 2.42 ERA, 0.894 WHIP
Drafted by Cleveland out of college in 2002, appeared in 16 games at the major league level before this year. He has been called up and down so many times that he is now out of options, and has had to pitch his way into a major-league job. Since joining the rotation in May, he has only had two starts where he failed to go at least 7 innings... his first two. Like Germano, he is a fly ball pitcher who doesn't walk anyone (1.7 BB/9, vs 7 K/9) and doesn't give up home runs (0.62 HR/9). Looks like Mazzone may not have lost his touch altogether.

Jorge Sosa, Mets - 30 years old
6-3 record, 4.09 ERA, 1.181 WHIP
Released by the Redbirds, and signed by the Mets in January, and was sent to the minors after spring training. His success may be fleeting, as his K (5.1/9) and BB (3.2/9) ratios are essentially the same as they have been over the past three years. But his hits allowed have dropped sharply, and his home runs allowed has fallen off the shelf, from 1.99/game in '05 to 2.99!/game last year to 0.88/game this season. HR allowed will dictate his success or failure, since he's a marked fly ball pitcher.

Rodrigo Lopez, Colorado - 31 years old
3-0 record, 2.90 ERA, 1.240 WHIP
Not a waiver claim, but acquired for pennies on the dollar from Baltimore in winter meetings - for minor leaguers Jason Burch and Jim Miller, neither of whom was a top-10 prospect withn the organization. (Burch was originally drafted by St Louis in the 23rd round, and included as part of the Larry Walker deal in 2004). Has improved his ground ball rate (50.6%) this year, a must for pitching at Coors, and has cut one full walk per game off his rate and also dropped his HR allowed. Currently outpitching Roger Clemens as we speak.

There are more out there that haven't seen the same kind of success - Buddy Carlyle with Atlanta, Jerome Williams (still only 25) and Jason Simontacci with the Nats, the immortal Sidney Ponson (since DFA'd) with the Twins, and Tomo Ohka (since DFA'd) with the Blue Jays. But nonetheless, these are examples of "unsexy" guys who were out there this past offseason. Any critique of the free agent pitching crop, and our inability to find quality, shouldn't ignore these players.

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yeah...but

i agree with your post, but for every guy that exceeded expectation, there is a guy who was a complete bust. It just goes to show how much of a gamble baseball is

by tdub @ Viva El Birdos on Jun 21, 2007 7:18 PM EDT reply actions

They were talking last night on SD radio

About how great a job somebody in their front office is doing snatching up talent including Germano, Linebrink, Bocachica, Hampson and others that they have acquired via Rule 5 and waiver claims. They are doing a lot with very little money invested in a bunch of these guys.

by OCCardsFan on Jun 21, 2007 7:43 PM EDT reply actions

Predicting which pitchers will prosper

is, at best, a maddening crapshoot. Somebody in your organization has to see "something" they like in these pitchers... since their previous performances don't indicate that they'll be effective. (Sosa, for example, was jettisoned by the Braves before his brief tenure with the Cards...)

Sometimes ya roll a seven; sometimes ya "crap out."

"In this game, don't nobody know nuthin' about nuthin'." -- attributed to Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra

by The Ol Goaler on Jun 21, 2007 9:36 PM EDT reply actions

Not entirely a crapshoot

I think in a lot of these cases, it's a matter of matching up the right talent with the right organization. In the case of Jeremy Guthrie, you see a kid who has great control but very little in the way of swing-and-miss stuff. On a lot of staffs, he wouldn't amount to much. Match him up with Leo Mazzone, though, the owner of the inch off the outer half of the plate, and you have a match made in heaven.

I think you could say the same for the success of a lot of the San Diego pitchers, with fly ball tendencies, and their large outfield filled with athletic outfielders with great range.

I think we saw something very similar in the success of Woody Williams with Duncan. There were no predicting factors from a statistical side, but from a scouting side perhaps it was a perfect match. The stronger an organization's lines of communication are and commitment to a certain utilization of skills, the more likely a team is to get "lucky" on players like these.

I'm with you on the success of guys like Sosa in New York, and Lopez in Colorado, those seem like rolls of the dice. But they were cheap risks, well worth taking.

by taiko on Jun 21, 2007 10:02 PM EDT up reply actions

Cheap Risks

The problem I see is that cheap risks are none-the-less risks and they more often than not, don't work out. Ponson in '06 and Wells in '07 are just a couple of examples. And don't forget last year. Despite our WS victory the season-long lament of this blog was that Jockety and company didn't make wise investments in a difference maker (i.e. AJ Burnett) but instead spread money around on too many high risk reclaim prjects.

I guess the big question here are these reclaim projects sucessful because management (in this case talent scouting and development/ rehab) is good, or is mangement good because these reclaim projects are sucessful? I'd be willing to bet that while the answer lies between the two extremes, it is closer to the latter than the former.

by Zubin on Jun 22, 2007 12:07 AM EDT up reply actions

It 's better to be lucky than good, right?

I get your point. But at the same time, I do believe that having a fully aligned management team down to the lowest levels of scouting helps generate better luck.

There's risk in every single acquisition, regardless of track record. You need only look at the Jason Schmidt contract, which could very easily make him the next Kevin Brown, to see that.

The example of San Diego as a team that has rebuilt more quickly than usual through the strength of some pretty shrewd/lucky acquisitions is an interesting one that probably could use some follow-up though. (They've also been pretty unlucky with injuries, particularly those that seem to take down Peavy every time he's about ready to dominate.) I know Kevin Towers has been on the job there for a while, and is generally highly regarded but not necessarily as a top-5 GM... but on balance they have been a competitive team for several years in a row now, after a relatively brief 4-5 year period of struggling.

I think there's a much higher risk associated with messing with a successful braintrust than in taking a flier on a player who fits your system. On this point, I hope that Jocketty is able to forge a better working relationship with Luhnow (and gets a new commitment from ownership to boot), because I believe they have the complimentary strengths to bring a lot of good to this organization.

by taiko on Jun 22, 2007 12:58 AM EDT up reply actions

Business analogy/ A new Moneyball?

Like I said, certainly management competence has a lot to do with finding the "hidden gems" of the FA class, but I think it has more to be with luck than anything else. If you listed out the more marginal (but still tallented) FAs of the last class, I am guessing that maybe 20-25% of them would be "bargains" in the comming year. Because of the random nature of such sucess, some clubs would have found more bargains and some fewer. And becuase of this randomness, I think it is somewhat of a folly to go back in hindsight and say because a certain team found more bargains, they are better managed.

I liken this to the analysis done by Jim Collins in the business book Built to Last In his book he profiled the "habits" of sucessful companies as measured by market returns over many years. Collin's analysis was in a large way destroyed by Robert Haugen in his book The New Finance. Haugen showed that the Built to Last Companies severely underperformed on average in the peroid following Collin's analysis. In laymen's terms, basically what this means is that while the Built to Last Companies are on a whole better managed than an average firm, part of what made them so good was luck or at least non-predictive. So if you invested in these firms betting that past performance was fully predictive, you'd get comparatively low returns.

So to close the analogy, if you think San Diego's sucess with crap-shoot free agents is fully predictive of future sucess, I'm guessing you'll be in for a surprise the next few years. More to the point, very likely their are teams that are just as skillfull at picking up bargins as San Diego, but unfortunately for them they have just been unlucky. And for us, its impossible to know which teams those are.

On a side note, I'd love to see an analysis to see if on averge high-risk, low reward (low-profile) FAs are a better investment than high risk-high reward (high profile) FAs. I think such an analysis could be a new moneyball.

by Zubin on Jun 22, 2007 2:42 AM EDT up reply actions