Trade Target: Jon Niese

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Recently it was reported by Joel Sherman of the New York Post that the New York Mets are getting offers on pitcher Jonathan Niese with the Blue Jays among the teams interested. Niese is a 25 year old starter whose repertoire consists of a 90 mph fastball with solid command, a dominant curveball and a solid cutter and changeup. Niese's traditional stats suggest he is somewhat of a mid to back of the rotation starter with a career 4.39 ERA and 22-23 record, but the peripheral stats suggest he is much better. Above all of this what I find particularly interesting is he seems to be Ricky Romero's statistical twin. They are both southpaws who have similar service times (Niese at 2.107, Romero at 3.000), but there is a lot more.

For starters both Romero and Niese have the exact same career strikeout rate at 19.2% and are similar in their walk rates at 7.5% and 9.4% for Niese and Romero respectively. Beyond that Niese and Romero are also very similar in their batted ball profiles with Niese's career numbers at a 20.5 LD%, a 49.1 GB%, and a 30.3 FB%, while Romero's numbers are at a 17.2 LD%, a 54.7 GB%, and a 28.2 FB%. To top it off both Romero and Niese have similar home run rates at 11.8 HR/FB% and 10.7 HR/FB% in their careers.

Not only are Romero and Niese statistical twins, but Niese's actual rate stats as well as his adjusted ERAs suggest that he is much better than he has shown, which makes him a prime trade target. Over his career Niese has consistently outperformed his ERA with a career ERA at 4.39, but with a career FIP at 3.77 and a career xFIP at 3.64. Most particularly notable is Niese's xFIP from this past season which was at 3.28 and 1.12 points lower than his 4.40 ERA. Niese's career low xFIP if qualified would have ranked 14th in the league between Anibal Sanchez and Dan Haren. Some of the xFIP is probably derived from Citi Field, but taking in to account that Niese is mainoly a groundball pitcher means that Citi shouldn't affect his numbers too much.

All of this Niese hyping is nice, but really doesn't meaning anything if he doesn't come for the right price. On the Getting Blanked Podcast they suggested Snider plus something else, because Snider alone probably isn't enough. I would suggest something along the lines of Travis Snider and Deck McGuire, Snider an outfielder which is something that the Mets could use and a pitching prospect who projects as a mid rotation starter. It is a steep price to pay and it could leave you with having to play Thames in LF for 2012, but for a guy who is right now an easy #3 in the AL East with his groundball style and one who could easily become a Romero 2.0, which is a very valuable commodity. Romero made the adjustments as a 25 and 26 year old pitcher, why can't Niese?

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Somewhat Defending Evan Grant

With the release of the AL MVP awards today two things came about in Blue Jays bloggerland, first people were unhappy, but at the same time expected that Jose Bautista would not be the AL MVP because he didn't have the narrative. Second was the extreme criticism of Texas Rangers beat writer Evan Grant who is the sole man to give Texas Rangers super utility man Michael Young a first place MVP vote. There have already been multiple articles trashing Mr. Grant's viewpoint and one most prominently done is that of Dustin Parkes over at Getting Blanked. Parkes essentially debunked all of Evan Grant's reasoning for giving Michael Young that first place vote and most of the debunking I agreed with the exception of the second last point.

Evan Grant's said "They don’t know that Derek Holland has met with him after almost every start lately for a critique and that Young and Holland have a special player-pitcher rapport. They don’t know that Mike Napoli, who is having a career year, lockers next to Young and has followed him around like a puppy dog." Essentially the point that Grant was trying to bring up was that players effect their teams in ways off the field and apparently in Michael's case it was positive. In response Mr. Parkes wrote "I suppose that for next year’s awards, pitching coaches should get Cy Young consideration and bench coaches should should get MVP consideration. After all, these are the type of contributions that a manager or team of coaches make that isn’t relevant to how a player performs on the field." With his response what Dustin Parkes fails to realize is that as much as us statheads may like to believe that all the value lies in the stats, players can have a positive effect on their team off of the field. We as fans may not be able to see these contributions, but they definitely are there and the name of the award is the Most Valuable Player, if the player is adding value with what he does off the field why disregard it. 


Before I get too far along I must say that this in no way means that I agree with Evan Grant's choice of Michael Young for MVP, but his conundrum brings up a very interesting point. Why not consider all the facets of a player's game for his MVP consideration. In some cases this could be a negative effect and some a positive effect. For example there was a story a year or so ago that stated that rather than Cito Gaston or Dwayne Murphy being responsible for the beast that is Jose Bautista, it suggested that instead it may have been the man the Jays traded away, Vernon Wells. It was suggested that Vernon's tip for Jose was that he should swing way in front of the ball, because the ball just kept getting by him, obviously it worked. 


Though in the end no matter whether it was Vernon, Cito, or Dwayne, these people, these beat writers have access to the players, coaches, and front office that us fans just don't. So then what is the big issue that these beat writers voting for the MVP take a player's off field abilities in to account. Obviously these such things shouldn't matter for the Rookie of the Year, which is the best rookie, or the Cy Young, which is the best pitcher, but for an award titled the Most Valuable Player, why not take all a player's value in to account. Many players have great coaching skills and that is why most coaches are former players. So for an award titled the Most Valuable Player, why not take all a player's value as the award suggests. 

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K-Rod for Closer

With news coming out yestertoday that all current Type A free agent relievers will now likely not require the signing team give up a first round pick, it has brought a whole new potential market for the Blue Jays to further explore. Even though the Jays were linked to free agent closers Jonathan Papelbon (before he was signed), Ryan Madson, and Heath Bell it was fairly clear they weren't going to sign anyone of them if it meant giving up a first round pick. Because of this we saw them look at lesser options like Huston Street of the Rockies who would have been on a shorter term and probably would not have cost much in prospects due to the Rockies likely looking for some salary relief. Though now with the first round draft pick compensation likely being taken away for Type A free agent relievers with the signing of the new CBA it allows the Jays to look at options like Francisco Rodriguez, Matt Capps, and Francisco Cordero, who likely without this change in the CBA would get little to no serious consideration.

Of this group the one who looks to make the most sense is Francisco Rodriguez. K-Rod started the season as the Mets closer in the last year of a 3 year $37 million contract and finished as the unhappy setup man for Canadian John Axford of the Milwaukee Brewers. Despite his lowest save total since becoming a full time closer in 2005 for Los Angeles Angels, K-Rod's peripheral stats were still very good in 2012. Rodriguez had a 2.64 ERA, 2.72 FIP, and 3.02 xFIP, which produced a 1.4  fWAR. All these numbers were put up despite a .321 BABIP, which is 46 points above his career average. 

To go along with all those stats in 2011 K-Rod put up a career low walk rate at 3.27 BB/9 and a career high GB% at 51.8%. That relatively high GB% came along with a career low 31.5% FB%, which is a bit of a change of pace from the 49.7% that de facto closer Jon Rauch put up in 2011. Granted an infield that includes Brett Lawrie may have some issues, but if and when Blue Jays defensive wizard Adeiny Hechavarria makes it to the big leagues, it could be a big help. It seems like the only real concerns with Francisco Rodriguez and his 2011 season that have been cited are his close to career low 9.92 K/9 and his dipping velocity. From 2008-2010 K-Rod's average fastball velocity was 92.0 mph, in 2010 it got down to 91.2 and in 2011 it went to 90.2.

I'm not going to go around and tell you that he's a proven closer, so he can overcome that, and I acknowledge it is concerning that there has been a dip of 2 mph, but he did deal with it in 2011 and could very well do the same in the future. Granted if the velocity dips anymore it could become a problem, but it is likely not to be too much of a problem as long as the deal he is signed to isn't a long term one. As well the dip in velocity could simply be a product of the thumb ligament injury that K-Rod incurred in the odd altercation that happened between him and the father of his girlfriend at the time as the injury happened with the thumb in his pitching hand.

Even after weighing out the pros and the cons of signing Francisco Rodriguez the eventual determiner of a K-Rod signing will be the dollars and the years. Obviously K-Rod is looking for a multi-year deal, but with the market what it is that may not be what happens. In their "Free Agent Stock Watch" series MLBTR suggested that K-Rod should get a deal around the ball park of like 1 year $9 million. Their reasoning for that estimation was essentially as a midway point between the average annual salaries that closers turned setup men Bobby Jenks and Rafael Soriano got in their respective deals last offseason. Though that deal seems pretty fair, there is a couple factors that could pull the average annual value down.

Firstly K-Rod might lower the average annual value in return for a second year, and in Anthopoulos' case probably an option for a third year, or a one year deal with an option for a second year. Secondly as evidenced by his comments in December he obviously wasn't happy being a set up man and will likely be looking for a job where he is the de facto and set in stone closer. Just as it did to Rasael Soriano, who eventually changed his mind, it decreases his options on the marketplace. Thirdly the free agent class that Rodriguez is in is fairly saturated and still includes options like Heath Bell, Ryan Madson, Matt Capps, Francisco Cordero, Joe Nathan, and Jonathan Broxton, even after the signing of Jonathan Papelbon. Finally considering that at times Francisco Rodriguez can be considered to have "makeup issues" such as when he allegedly punched his girlfriend's father, as well when he makes comments like, "I'm not fine, they told me I'd have the oppurtunity to close some games, and we've had 20-some save oppurtunities since then and I haven't even had one."

Suffice to say all of these things are not positives and just express the many reasons why the Blue Jays may be able to take a shot at him. Taking into account the fact that according to FanGraph's dollars stat that describes the amount of money that the player should make on the free agent market has his value at $6.4 million in 2011, I'm thinking if I was AA I would offer K-Rod 2 year $7 million with an option for a second year and maybe guarantee the second year. He would be cemented as our closer, and he would at least be have an option for a second year. The fact that there really hasn't been much buzz with Francisco Rodriguez makes me think that this could be a possibility. Besides would you rather give $6 million to a 37 year old Joe Nathan or an oft-injured Jonathan Broxton, or would you spring the extra million or two to go after a guy who has been a consistently good reliever for his whole career.

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