Cubs right-hander Mark Prior is reportedly on the trade market. - Scott Ableman/Flickr.com
Friday Morning Rangers Notes
Apologies in advance for this morning’s abbreviated piece; a dearth of relevant Rangers news, combined with your favorite football team losing a huge game to the Dallas Cowboys, kind of has a way of sapping the collective sports life out of you.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Jim Reeves published an new article on Thursday morning concerning Texas’s relatively quiet off-season to date, and how the Rangers are unlikely to make a big splash at next week’s winter meetings:
“We’re going to keep turning over every stone, talking trades and every scenario, but there’s a chance we’re boring right now,” Daniels candidly admitted Wednesday. “We may not be making headlines this off-season. We pushed our chips to the middle of the table in the middle of last season.”
The remainder of Reeves’ piece is essentially a rehashing of previous information, but one item in particular does jump out at me:
The Rangers have also had conversations with the Red Sox regarding Coco Crisp, but Boston is asking for two from a list of three of Texas’ premium young players.
Frankly, the Rangers likely wouldn’t give up even one of those players straight up for Crisp. Left-handed reliever C.J. Wilson, for instance, is one of the players the Red Sox coveted.
Yeah, no thanks.
Meanwhile, Richard Durrett put forth the idea of the Rangers pursuing injury-plagued Cubs right-hander Mark Prior over at the DMN SeamHeads Rangers blog, which comes as a result of unanimous rival executives reporting to the media earlier this week that Chicago was indeed willing to deal the 27-year-old ex-fireballer.
It’s fairly difficult to predict exactly where Prior’s health is going to go as we move forward, but if I were Jon Daniels, I’d be reluctant to offer up much of value if a trade opportunity theoretically presented itself. Although stranger things have happened before, there just doesn’t seem to be much of a basis for a deal happening here.
ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark ran through the rumor mill in his latest “Rumblings and Grumblings” column on Thursday, which revealed some interesting Rangers tidbits buried underneath the heap of Johan Santana and Miguel Cabrera trade proposals:
- According to various club executives across the league who have been in touch with the Red Sox and GM Theo Epstein, Boston has put all trade talks involving Coco Crisp on hold until the Johan Santana situation resolves itself. That being said, I doubt Epstein would balk for one second if the Rangers actually offered Eric Hurley in exchange for Crisp, or the aforementioned C.J. Wilson.
- The Rangers have reportedly “kicked the tires” on outfielders Rocco Baldelli, Jim Edmonds and Juan Pierre. Out of the trio listed, only Baldelli does much for me, and he’s likely resigned to a role as a corner outfielder or designated hitter in 2008 due to his balky hamstrings.
In addition, Stark mentions that right-hander Vicente Padilla has been made “extremely available” on the trade market, while including this rather amusing quote:
“I once heard somebody say,” quipped one baseball man, “that he doesn’t just have baggage. He has luggage.”
And finally, if what newly inked Angels center fielder Torii Hunter said to the Los Angeles Times is actually true, then his new ballclub overpaid for his services by at least $20 million.
But after the events that transpired leading up to Hunter’s surprise agreement with the Angels on the night before Thanksgiving, I’m not sure if we can believe much of what comes out of Torii’s mouth anymore.
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10 Responses to “Friday Morning Rangers Notes”
November 30th, 2007 at 9:55 am
If the Rangers even attempt to trade for Pierre, I’m going to set fire to the Ballpark. Allow me to breakdown the reasons for my threat of arson.
When you consider his salary, Juan Pierre might be the least productive offensive player in the major leagues. When looking at a surface stat like batting average, Pierre looks like a decent hitter. He isn’t. Let’s look at some of the nerdy stats:
In 2007, Pierre had an OPS+ of 75, which was lower than Nelson Cruz’s OPS+. His WARP3 was 3.4, that means that his value was only 3.4 wins above a replacement player when adjusted historically. HIs EqA was a whopping .256 and his GPA (this one is for you Joey) was only .237. GPA is one of my favorite stats. It is a refined version of OPS that gives proper relative weight to the two component statistics (OBP and SLG%) Since most sabermaticians agree that OBP is at least 1.8 times more important that SLG%, the formula for GPA is [(OBP*1.8)+SLG]/4. It gives you a number that falls on a scale similar to batting average. .265 is considered average and .300 is considered above average. Pierre’s GPA was .237. His offensive abilities are very questionable to say the least.
His defense isn’t very good either. His range has never been a problem, mostly due to his speed, but his arm is on par with Johnny Damon’s and that makes him a poor choice to play CF in a large OF. Speaking of his speed, he has been known to steal a few bases. The problem is that he often doesn’t steal above 80% which basically puts him on the cusp of being a disadvantage to the team.
According to Cot’s, Pierre is scheduled to make $36.5 million over the next four seasons. Considering his limited defense and his below average offensive production, would anybody even consider Pierre to be anything more than a glorified OF sub? In short, if we trade for Pierre and you see smoke in Arlington….I was responsible.
November 30th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Agree with you completely, Jason - Pierre is not a good player for all the reasons you listed, and his contract situation is ugly to boot. The Rangers could probably get him for a low-level prospect if they agreed to assume his whole contract, but what is the point?
I also learned something just now: I had never heard of GPA outside of academia before. I’ve been aware for a long time that OBP is worth more than SLG, but never knew there was a relevant statistic behind that. Is that widely available on Baseball Prospectus, or somewhere else?
Kenny Rogers signed a one-year deal with the Tigers this morning, which officially puts the “Rogers to Texas” talk underground.
New York traded Lastings Milledge to the Nationals for catcher Brian Schneider and outfielder Ryan Church, which is simply an awful trade. Much more on that tonight.
And Troy E. Renck of the Denver Post is reporting that the Rangers, Tigers and Yankees are all willing to offer a multi-year deal…to reliever LaTroy Hawkins. What a horrible idea.
November 30th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
GPA started here: http://www.aarongleeman.com/2003_11_23_baseballblog_archive.html#106974007971391611
Unfortunately, it just hasn’t caught on the way OPS has. OPS+ is similar to GPA in that it gives more weight to OBP, but not enough in my opinion. Of course I’m not as extreme as Paul DePodesta who suggests a proper OBP/SLG ratio is 3:1 and Bill James has suggested that the ratio should be closer to 4:1. I really like GPA or Gross Production Average because it is on a very similar scale to batting average and that is the stat most people still use to evaluate offensive performance. (although they shouldn’t)
November 30th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/discussion/aarons_baseball_blog_introducing_gpa/
More GPA discussion
November 30th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
If you were the Mets, whom would you rather have in exchange for Milledge?
Schneider and Church
or
Laird and Nelson Cruz
Right now, Church is probably better - but Cruz has to have more potential. Same thing with Laird - although that one’s pretty close.
I can’t believe that’s all they got for the guy… JD, where the hell were you on that one?
November 30th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Wow, Jason… you are fast becoming the “stat nerd” of this here blog. The next time I need an in-depth stat breakdown, I’m just going to ask you, rather than try to stumble though it myself.
Sure do agree with you about Peirre, though - after looking at everything you put up there, he may be one of the most overrated players in baseball. If we do wind up with him… just let me know what day you want to start that fire.
Jdolla$ -
I’m with you, I can’t help but think we lost out on the Mets thing because JD just would not pull the trigger. Not once, but TWICE did the Mets announce they where interested in Laird, and yet we loose out to the Nationals. Ugh. I admit I don’t know the specifics behind this trade, but it sure seems like JD is asleep at the wheel. We need to start making some moves here, before all the good deals are gone.
As for Mark Prior…
I don’t know about everyone else, but this Intreagues me… maybe we trade for him, and stick him in the 7th-8th inning role in the ‘pen, is that the thinking? That seems like a decent idea, as long as the word “starter” never apperas next to his name.
November 30th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Thanks for the kind words Jon.
December 1st, 2007 at 1:22 am
Thanks a lot for the info, Jason - I’m certainly going to look into that further, and I may utilize it in future research.
JDolla, I’d probably take Schneider/Church, but the packages really aren’t that far apart. I would have loved to have seen JD jump into the bidding here, but then again, fans of 28 other teams across the league are probably thinking the same thing right now.
And hell, perhaps Minaya just had a huge crush on Ryan Church.
Jon, I haven’t heard anything suggesting that he’ll be groomed as a reliever in 2008 - in fact, he has never made a relief appearance in his entire professional baseball career, dating back to 2002. I’m assuming that the Cubs plan to bring him back as a starter once again.
December 1st, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Hmmn… that’s interesting about Prior. With his history, I’d think he’d be moved to the bullpen just as fast as Kerry Wood… especially since the Cubbie bullpen isn’t exactly the greatest in the league.
Again, I’d be intersted in him for a reliever spot - but his history is just to shaky for me to like him as a starter. Although, we already have a slow-throwing, questionably durable Kason Gabbard slotted into the rotation… I guess I could see the Rangers making a gamble on a fireballing Prior.
December 3rd, 2007 at 12:10 am
I’d probably stick with Prior as a starter, even with the knowledge that his arm could explode at any moment.
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