Phillies GM Ruben Amaro says to expect “significant changes” to the team’s roster, MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki writes. “I think we need it,” says Amaro. “I think we need it because what we have on our roster right now is not working.” The timing of Amaro’s comments is a bit odd, given that he spent both the July and August deadlines mostly declining to trade veterans (although he did ship John Mayberry Jr. to the Blue Jays yesterday). Perhaps, though, there are big moves coming in the offseason. Last week, former GM Pat Gillick took over as interim team president while David Montgomery went on medical leave. Amaro says that the Phillies will not replace him or manager Ryne Sandberg while Gillick is running the team. Here’s more from the National League.
- Mets manager Terry Collins is surprised that there wasn’t more interest in pitcher Bartolo Colon before the August deadline, Marc Carig of Newsday reports. “I was a little surprised that there wasn’t more activity,” says Collins. “But I’m happy he’s still here.” Colon cleared waivers despite his respectable performance this season, probably due primarily to his $11MM salary in 2015.
- The returns of Matt Harvey and Bobby Parnell and improvements by Lucas Duda would suggest that the Mets are trending upward, but the David Wright and Curtis Granderson contracts could become a problem, Adam Rubin of ESPN New York writes. Wright is signed through 2020, and his .264/.324/.364 line this season is way off his career norms. Granderson, meanwhile, hasn’t hit well in the first season of his four-year deal. If those players don’t improve, and if the Mets don’t significantly increase spending, they’ll be stuck paying a large percentage of their team payroll to two relatively unproductive players.
- Jonathan Broxton was surprised the Reds traded him to the Brewers, Tom Haudricourt of the Journal Sentinel reports. “I didn’t see it coming at all, especially with an extra year (remaining on his contract) in there,” Broxton says. Broxton will make $9MM in 2015, plus a $2MM buyout or a $9MM mutual option in 2016. He will pitch in the eighth inning for the Brewers, Haudricourt writes.
- The Brewers’ September call-ups will likely include players who aren’t already on their 40-man roster, Haudricourt tweets. That means they’ll have to make moves involving players already on the 40-man. The Brewers have already selected the contract of catcher Matt Pagnozzi, moving Jeff Bianchi to the 60-day DL.
I think most people knew that Granderson signing was bad as soon as it happened.
they took a chance on Granderson. He was a productive player with the Yankees, when healthy. Low average, high power, but he finished 4th in MVP in 2011, and was still a 3 WAR player in 2012. The injury in 2013 was (two ) flukes. Right now, looks like a bad bet. But it wasn’t clear that you would have expected this poor a production. Granderson isn’t the only player who nabbed a big contract and hasn’t performed well.
MVP votes? Why don’t we talk about his RBI’s or how many All Star Appearances he has?
OK, All Star in 2011 and 2012, 119 RBI in 2011, 106 in 2012, 5.7 WAR in 2011, 3.0 WAR in 2012, 136 Runs in 2011, 102 in 2012, and you don’t finish 4th in MVP voting in the modern era without having accomplished a few things. A lot of GM’s would have been very happy to have had those two years. 2013 was an injury wipe out. I’m not saying the signing was good. It wasn’t wise in terms of length. But Granderson was a pretty fair player.
Let’s forget that any pulled ball in Yankee Stadium is an easy homerun shall we? Going from a hitter friendly division to a league where every stadium was built for pitching excluding Colorado was going to affect his power numbers. I can’t see how anyone didn’t see this coming.
“Let’s forget that any pulled ball in Yankee Stadium is an easy homerun shall we?” You have an interesting way of expressing yourself to anyone who disagrees with you. Borders on contempt, which is unfortunate. Let’s not forget that in Granderson’s four full years that preceded the trade to the Yankees, he put up 18.9 bWAR, which isn’t in the least bit bad. The Met’s probably shouldn’t have signed him, but by no means was he a poor player.
I don’t think teams played the shift on Granderson until he changed his swing up in 2011. Mix that in with his declining speed since he turned 31 and you might understand why his batting average has dropped off so much. Anyways, his swing was built for hitter friendly ballparks in the A.L. This season his home splits are horrendous (.186/.287/.325). Citifield is not a easy ballpark to hit home runs in and Jason Bay and countless others would agree.
Granderson hit 30 of his 41 homers were inside of the A.L East’s friendly ballparks in 2011. His 2012 total was equally as eye opening as he hit 32 of his 43 homers inside the A.L East. I’m sure if we looked at his homer chart from 2011-2012, a good deal of his home runs wouldn’t be home runs in N.L ballparks.
Many of the people who vote for MVP take advanced stats into consideration. Some voters even base their decision entirely on them. The fact that Grandy had a low BA but still received MVP votes is meaningful. Much more so than RBI or All-Star appearances (voted on by the fans in like May).
.262 isn’t that low.
Yes, that’s why Mike Trout is a 2 time MVP right?
No, but it’s why he got so many votes. Remember, we’re talking about votes, not actual MVPs. My post says that many voters take them into consideration and some base their decision on them. Nowhere am I saying that all of the voters are basing their decisions entirely on them. MVP votes are far more important than All-Star game appearances, and I’d argue that they’re more important than RBI as well.
I think that you’re arguing a moot point. All such categories are worthless in the eyes of sabermetric supporters and when a fan is posting how he and others expected someone to better then he was because he got RBI’s or MVP votes in the past I think he’s opening himself up to criticism. I saw the deal backfiring right away just because of the stadium change alone.
Trout was by himself as a clear cut MVP in 2012 but MVP voters tend to vote for someone who’s team made the playoffs which is a whole story in itself. Yes, I know your arguing MVP votes rather then getting the MVP itself, that just shows you how few sabermetric guys there are in the BWAA so I don’t understand the argument.
The BWAA has reversed field on a number of Hall of Famers and has in recent years handed out Cy Youngs to Felix Hernandez and Tim Lincecum when their traditional numbers did not merit it. There are increasing numbers of sabermetrically-inclined writers in the BWAA. If there were only a ‘few’, Bert Blyleven would not be in the HoF and Jack Morris would be. Edgar Martinez and Tim Raines (who both took a step back last year in large part due to the huge number of people on the ballot) wouldn’t have so many votes each year.
Arguing that MVP votes = All-star appearances in determining value is a little off, imo, given the total meaninglessness of the latter. Fans vote on it, it’s based on a month or two of performance, each team needs a rep, guys get in on reputation, etc. If a guy is finishing 4th in the MVP voting (as the OP mentioned), he’s most likely had a pretty awesome year.
I’d like to point out Felix Hernandez won his Cy Young in a year where nobody had 20+ wins with a ERA under 3.00.
The exact same can be said for Lincecum’s Cy Young wins.
I made a comment earlier when someone argued this with me months ago that people get votes as a pitcher based on how many wins(20 or more) and if they have a nice looking ERA( Under 3.00). I don’t think there has ever been a guy who didn’t win a Cy Young when that criteria was filled.
Oh, come on. Felix Hernandez was 13-12. He was barely a .500 pitcher and he won the Cy Young. If that isn’t evidence of the voters using advanced stats, then please tell me what would be.
Nobody won 20 games that year and had a ERA under 3.00. The criteria for automatic win wasn’t filled.
How does that have any bearing at all on what I’m saying here? So because your extremely arbitrary and made up criteria wasn’t fulfilled, it means that the BWAA doesn’t use sabermetrics? CC Sabathia had 21 wins and a 3.18 ERA. Price had 19 wins and a 2.72. Lester had 19 and a 3.25. There’s stubborn and then there’s this.
So hitting 50 home runs isn’t more attractive than hitting 49, and getting 3000 hits without PED suspicion doesn’t get you in the HOF? The voting process is all done by basic statistics, nobody looks up WAR or what their FIP is when doing this. Lots of the old media that is still apart of the BWAA bashes people who use WAR. Go look up the amount of 20 game winners with a ERA under 3.00 not to win a Cy Young and I’ll gladly admit I was wrong. Until I don’t want to argue with someone who believes the BWAA is the be all and end all of baseball.
Also research up Pedro Martinez’s 1999 MVP snub while you’re at it. He wasn’t even on someone’s ballet because he believed “A pitcher doesn’t deserve to be on the MVP ballet”.
Instead of citing a Pedro Martinez from 15 years ago, please stay in the present. Of course no one was looking at WAR in 1999. If you think that many writers are not looking at advanced stats now, though, your head is buried very deep in the sand.
I’m not arguing anything close to the BBWA being the ‘be all and end all’ of baseball. The main and ONLY point I’m making is that currently, MVP voting (especially someone finishing high like Grandy) is WAY more of a judge of someone’s value than All-Star appearances. You’ve yet to even begin refuting this and are spinning out into tangents about 20 wins and 3.00 ERA. Stay on task here. If the BWAA doesn’t look at advanced stats, explain Felix’s CY when he was 13-12.
Miguel Cabrera won the 2012 MVP despite Mike Trout clearly being the MVP for what reason? To honor the fact that there has never been a triple crown winner to not win the MVP, that was Mike1L’s reasoning.
Also I never said nobody in the baseball writers association used sabermetrics. I’m sure a few do, however there are still a large majority of people in that group that refuse to acknowledge advanced sabermetric statistics as very few members of the BBWA are newer writers of the game.
Saying I need my head out of the sand because I brought up Pedro Martinez not winning an MVP award is absurd, I was saying that he was left off a ballet by someone because of their personal beliefs that a pitcher doesn’t deserve to be on the MVP ballet. Those writers still exists in the BBWA by the way. (George King (NY Post) and Lavelle Neal (Minneapolis/St. Paul Star Tribune).
I got a recent Cy Young snub, 2005 Johan Santana losing to Bartolo Colon’s 21 wins and Mariano Rivera if you can believe it. Explain that one.
By characterizing Cabrera’s MVP win in 2012 as a product of the Tigers making the playoffs, you are omitting a highly relevant factor–Cabrera won the Triple Crown, the first time that had been done since 1967. That’s not a small accomplishment, even if two of those are mere counting stats, and many voters felt they should honor it, irrespective of Trout’s higher WAR.
I feel that’s merely an opinion on why they voted for him that year. Verlander won the MVP back in 2011 for being a triple crown winner in pitching despite the fact the previous two triple crown winners not being given the MVP award when they were both well deserving of it in that sense. In Pedro Martinez’s case, he was robbed of it as someone left him off their ballet completely. Yes, a BWAA member left him off their ballet despite being well deserving of a top finish for whatever reason.
Did you insult his measuring tool with two even worse ones?
I didn’t think the Granderson contract was that bad either. I wouldn’t call it an overpay at all. It’s not like they gave him 6 or 7 years and 100+. $15m a year for 4 years is pretty reasonable for how productive he was before his fluky (i.e., not long term effect) injury-ravaged 2013. And the contract is not a franchise-breaker (or maybe I just see it that way because, as a Phillies fan, I’ve seen so much worse).