Open Thread: Kevin Brown

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(Photo via The New York Times)

In many ways, Javier Vazquez and Kevin Brown are the poster boys for the Yankees’ pitching failures in the mid-aughts. Javy bears most of the blame for the Game Seven loss in the 2004 ALCS, but of course he couldn’t have done it without the help of Brown, who was nice enough to load the bases on a single and two walks with one out in the second inning before Johnny Damon hit that grand slam. The Yankees acquired Brown from the Dodgers eight years ago today, sending Jeff Weaver, Brandon Weeden, and Yhency Brazoban to Los Angeles.

Brown, 38 at the time, was coming off a monster season with the Dodgers in 2003. He’d used his trademark sinker to generate a ground ball on 62.5% of the balls he allowed in play while striking out 7.89 batters per nine and walking just 2.39 per nine. Stretch that out over 32 starts and 211 IP, and you’ve got a 6.0 fWAR and 5.4 bWAR season. Of course Brown never replicated that success in pinstripes, though his 2004 regular season wasn’t as bad I remember: a 4.09 ERA (4.03 FIP) in 132 IP across 22 starts. The playoffs were a disaster, and he did miss time with a back strain and a broken left hand after infamously punching a clubhouse wall.

The 2005 season was a complete catastrophe. Back problems forced Brown onto the disabled list three different times, and when he was on the mound he couldn’t prevent runs from scoring. He allowed 57 runs in his 73.1 IP (13 starts), resulting in a 6.50 ERA. The peripherals were okay (3.61 FIP) but at that point, who cared? Brown wore out his welcome in New York and was essentially forced out of baseball after the season, an unceremonious end to a great career that should earn him Hall of Fame consideration.

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Here is tonight’s open thread. All three hockey locals are in action tonight, but talk about anything you want. Go nuts.

Yanks talking to Nakajima, but not close to deal

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Via David Waldstein, Brian Cashman has said that he is currently negotiating with the agent for Japanese shortstop Hiroyuki Nakajima, but the two sides aren’t close to a deal yet. The Yankees won Nakajima’s negotiating rights with a $2.5M bid last week, and the 29-year-old is likely to sign. I suspect that talks won’t get serious until after the holidays, at which point they’ll have about two weeks to hammer out a deal.

In other Nakajima news, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS system projects a .276/.322/.389 batting line for him next season (89 OPS+), adjusting for Yankee Stadium. That’s after he hit .306/.379/.478 with an average of 19.3 homers and 18.7 stolen bases over the last three seasons with the Seibu Lions. For comparison’s sake, Eduardo Nunez hit .265/.313/.385 with 22 stolen bases this past season. Like the Yankees have been saying, Nakajima’s a utility guy.

Five stages of grief over a $189 million payroll

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Note: In case there was any confusion, I recognize that this is firmly in Spoiled Yankees Fan territory.

Reactions to news that the Yankees desire to trim payroll by 2014 have resembled the Kübler-Ross model. First came denial: no way the Yankees would actually do this. They’re just setting a smokescreen. Then came anger: how can the Yankees trim their payroll while they raise ticket prices? That leaves three stages remaining: bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Let’s see if we can run though these in short order, so that we can prepare ourselves in case the Yankees actually do intend to duck the luxury tax cap in order to lower their payments once they re-cross the threshold.

Bargaining

The biggest issue with trimming payroll is that the Yankees need players to fill key spots. While they have all of their position players under contract for 2012, they could still use another starting pitcher. Nick Swisher then becomes a free agent after the 2012 season, leaving a spot in right field that the Yankees would be hard pressed to fill internally. These things cost money to fill.

Yet we still want the shiny toys. We want Yu Darvish this year, and we want Cole Hamels next year. We want a big bat to take over for Swisher in right — it was Matt Kemp previously, but surely fan desire will turn to another worthy candidate in time. Again, these players come with big price tags. It’s hard enough to fit them into a $210 million payroll, let alone a $188 million one. But we can make this work, right?

According to Joel Sherman’s original article on the payroll issue, the Yankees already have about $85 million committed to the 2014 payroll, at least as it concerns luxury tax. That covers Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia, plus “about a $10 million charge for benefits, such as pensions.” Then there’s another possible $6 million if A-Rod hits his 714th homer in 2014; if he’s anywhere near that mark at the end of 2013 they have to assume that $6 million charge. That could conceivably put them at $91 million for three players.

Want to sign Robinson Cano to a long-term deal? That’ll likely mean a contract with an average annual value between $22 and $24 million. Even then, they’re covered at 3B (optimistically), 1B, 2B, and one starting pitcher. Derek Jeter could exercise his player option for $8 million. Brett Gardner will still be around, but won’t be cheap in his third year of arbitration. Ditto David Robertson. Jesus Montero, thankfully, will still make about a half million, which will soothe the payroll a bit. Ivan Nova will just hit his first year of arbitration, giving them another relatively cheap producer. That still leaves them with voids to fill in center field, right field, the bullpen and rotation, catcher or DH, and maybe shortstop. It’s a long list.

So where does that leave us? At a conservative $15 million estimate for Gardner, Robertson, and Nova, $23 million for Cano, and $8 million for Jeter, that brings us to $137 million. OK. That doesn’t look too bad. Counting Montero, that’s nine players. Surely they can sign the remaining 14 players for $50 million, right? Well, that depends on how you want to fill the spots. Want Darvish? That’s probably a $10 million AAV. Want Cole Hamels next off-season? That could be another $22 million. See how quickly that money gets spent? Even if they go with just Darvish, that still leaves them just $40 million for 13 spots, including two in the outfield.

That leads us to…

Depression

It does appear that the Yankees will have to scale back on spending at some point if they do intend to get to $189 million. The biggest obstacle is the money already on the books. That $91 million for three players puts the Yankees at a great handicap, since it represents essentially half of their available payroll. That leaves them with the same amount of money to sign the entire rest of the roster. Needless to say, that’s not an easy proposition.

Again, looking at the above back of the napkin calculation, the Yanks have 14 spots to fill for $50 million — and that assumes that Montero is the real deal and can either catch, or can hit well enough to remain at DH. But there are still those holes in the outfield, in the starting rotation, and in the bullpen. Sure, on the bench and in the bullpen they can probably get away with five or six guys making the league minimum, so that gives us eight spots to fill for $47 million. But even one high-priced pitcher changes that equation drastically.

That’s still do-able, in a way. If the Yankees can make use of six or seven guys making the minimum — and that can be guys such as Mason Williams and Manny Banuelos as starters, or guys such as Adam Warren, Brandon Laird, and Dellin Betances as reserves and bullpen arms — they’ll have a bit more flexibility. In fact, if they score a few key hits from the minors they very well could fall into this payroll range. No, that’s not the depressing part. The depression comes from the players already under contract.

In 2014 A-Rod will be 38, and turn 39 in July. Jeter will be 40 that June. Less troublesome are Teixeira at 34 and Sabathia at 33. No, the depression comes from the spots and money essentially guaranteed Rodriguez and Jeter. Maybe Jeter retires, though that opens up yet another spot without a viable replacement in the system. A-Rod, though, will make $26 million in 2014. What’s worse, Yanks fans had better hope he makes $32 million. He has 85 homers to go until he triggers his second home run milestone bonus, at 714. If he’s not poised to hit that milestone in 2014 it’ll mean he’s averaging fewer than 30 homers per year. For the money they’re paying him, the Yanks need that kind of production from Rodriguez. Yet given his injuries lately, it seems a longshot to think he’ll live up to that standard.

Acceptance

Is it going to suck watching the Yankees scale back their spending in the name of circumventing luxury tax payments? Absolutely. Will it mean they miss the playoffs a year or two? With the added Wild Card they’ll have a better chance of making it, but the competition in the AL has increased. The only fun that will come of this will be the chances they give prospects. If they’re not committing big money to additional positions, then they pretty much have to give the kids a shot.

The only thing to do at this point is accept it. The Yankees have these three huge contracts on the books, and nothing they can do will reduce their current 2014 luxury tax level. If the Steinbrenners really do want to save the luxury tax money, there’s nothing we can do to stop them. They know the repercussions of putting a subpar product on the field, and they know the consequences of missing the playoffs. We can only trust that they’ll make decisions with that knowledge in mind.

Bonus: Denial Again!

But seriously. With the three-team scrum in the AL East, combined with the enormous incentive to win the division, the Yanks can’t be serious about trimming payroll, right?

Saving money on Sabathia’s extension

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(AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

A few weeks ago, the Yankees and CC Sabathia came to an agreement on a new contract extension that will presumably keep him in pinstripes for the rest of his career, a deal that also prevented the lefty from opting out and becoming a free agent. For all intents and purposes, it’s a five-year contract worth $122M plus a sixth year vesting option worth $25M that depends on the health of his shoulder. Since he had four years and $92M left on his original deal, all the team did was tack another year and $30M on top of it.

Given how the last few weeks have unfolded around baseball, there’s a pretty good chance that one year and $30M represents a significant bargain for the Yankees. When the new extension was reported, we learned that the team originally offered Sabathia a five-year contract worth $120.5M with no option, so essentially what Cliff Lee took from the Phillies. The Yankees didn’t want him to opt out, so they upped their offer to include the vesting option and another $1.5M, good enough to keep him around. That’s the going rate for a 31-year-old ace on the open market, at least prior to this winter.

Before agreeing to a five-year, $77.5M contract with his hometown Angels, C.J. Wilson received a six-year offer from the Marlins that approached $100M. A few days prior to that, Miami signed Mark Buehrle — a bonafide workhorse, but also a slightly older and less effective version of Sabathia — to a four-year pact worth $58M. Albert Pujols managed to get ten years, Jose Reyes and his bum hamstrings got six years, and chances are Prince Fielder is going to get something insane as well. There was certainly a lot of money to be spent this offseason.

Had he actually hit the open market, Sabathia would have been the undisputed top pitcher available. Pujols and Fielder were the only other players on the market available capable of providing the kind of impact Sabathia can as well. We’ll never know for sure, but chances are the Marlins and Angels would have pursued him, perhaps the Nationals as well, and of course the Yankees would have been involved. That five-year, $122M with a vesting option contract extension could have turned into six guaranteed years pretty quick, maybe even as many as seven years. Five years and $122M was a fair deal at the time that sudden looks like a little bit of a steal for the team.

As expected, Sabathia has already started to shed some weight this offseason. He’s been using the same conditioning program as last winter, when he lost 30 lbs., and Ken Davidoff said he was noticeably slimmer at a recent charity event. “Just maintain it during the season,” said Sabathia, acknowledging that he did gain weight back during the summer. The Yankees re-invested heavily in their ace this offseason, but the contract damage could have been a lot worse if they didn’t up their initial offer to prevent him from hitting the open market.

Reds sign Andrew Brackman

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It seemed curious when, in early November, the Yankees declined their $2 million option on Andrew Brackman. That doesn’t seem too unreasonable for a former No. 1 pick, especially one who has, at times, shown promise. The reasons for the Yankees cutting bait weren’t immediately clear, so the possibility remained that he’d re-sign with the team on a minor league deal. That is no longer an option. According to Jon Heyman, the Reds have signed Brackman to a one-year deal at the major league minimum. He grew up in Cincinnati, so I’m sure that factored into his decision. While the Yankees optioned him three times — 2009, 2010, and 2011 — the Reds can apply for a fourth option since he used up his three original options within his first five pro seasons. Brackman was always a pipe dream of a prospect for the Yanks. Here’s hoping him the best in Cincy.

Love Me Non-Tender

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(Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)

I’m fairly certain we’ve used that headline for every non-tender deadline in RAB history, but I’m not going to stop until someone tells me to. Anyway, last night was this year’s non-tender deadline, when teams had to offer contracts to their players with less than six years of service time or cut them loose. The Yankees unsurprisingly tendered all of their eligible players contracts, but of course not every team followed suit. There’s a whole new batch of free agents on the market this morning, some more interesting than others.

A full list of non-tenders can be found here, and we’ve already talked about several of them. That includes Hong-Chih Kuo (interesting, but not sure if he wants to play next year), Ryan Spilborghs (hasn’t hit lefties in three years), and Joe Saunders (lefty reliever only). Unfortunately neither Tom Gorzelanny (lefty reliever candidate) nor Joe Thatcher (held lefties to .185/.250/.259 with a 5.23 K/BB ratio last three years, bothered by shoulder problems in 2011) were non-tendered, so the Yankees won’t be able to scoop them up for nothing but money and a roster spot.

A few people have already asked about Luke Scott, who the Orioles cut loose. He’d make a lot of sense for the Yankees if they needed a DH since he’s a left-handed power hitter willing to work counts and draw walks, but they don’t. Calling him an outfielder is a stretch, and they absolutely shouldn’t let him (or any free agent, really) take at-bats away from Jesus Montero next season. He just isn’t a good fit. I’d rather see the Yankees try to sign Jeremy Hermida to a minor league deal if they want to add some lefty hitting outfield depth, since the out-of-options Chris Dickerson is likely to end up elsewhere. Here’s a few more non-tenders of note…

(Keppinger via Jed Jacobsohn/Getty; Rhymes via Nick Laham/Getty)

Jeff Keppinger & Will Rhymes, IF

The Yankees have been connected to Keppinger quite a bit over the last year or so, as they showed interest in trading for him last offseason before he needed foot surgery in January. The 31-year-old was terrible in 2011 (.295 wOBA in 399 PA), but he’s shown flashes of being something more than a zero with the stick in the past. His .332 wOBA in 2010 was fueled by an 8.9% walk rate, and he excels at making contact (just 6.2% strikeouts and 2.8% swings and misses in his career). Just don’t expect any power whatsoever (career .108 ISO). Keppinger can play second and third, but he hasn’t logged many innings at short in recent years.

Rhymes, 28, is a tad more interesting. His big league performance (.313 wOBA in 312 PA) isn’t anything special, but he’s a .290/.357/.386 career hitter in nearly 1,400 Triple-A plate appearances. Rhymes is essentially a left-handed version of Keppinger, meaning he has no power (.085 ISO in the minors), draws a fair amount of walks (8.0% in the bigs, 8.8% in Triple-A) and makes a lot of contact (9.0% strikeouts and 2.8% swings and misses in MLB, 10.5% strikeouts in Triple-A). Although the Tigers had him play second base exclusively the last two years, he’s seen time at third and short in the minors. Interestingly enough, Detroit non-tendered Rhymes even though he has less than one year of service time, so whatever team signs him will control him through 2017. From what I can tell, he even has one minor league option remaining.

(Slaten via Greg Fiume/Getty; Mijares via Jason Miller/Getty)

Doug Slaten & Jose Mijares, LHP

Brian Cashman insists that left-handed relief help isn’t a priority at the moment, but you know they’re going to keep an eye out for anyone that could be useful in that role. They added Cesar Cabral through the Rule 5 Draft after bringing Mike O’Connor aboard on a minor league deal, and now they’ll have a crack at Slaten and Mijares.

Slaten, 32 in February, has managed to appear in 204 games over the last five seasons, holding lefties to a .241/.304/.361 batting line with 73 strikeouts and 23 walks in 301 plate appearances. He’s a big guy (listed at 6-foot-5, 215 lbs.) without big stuff (upper-80’s fastball and low-80’s slider, so generic LOOGY stuff), and he missed time with nerve damage in his elbow in 2011. Mijares, 27, is a shorter and fatter version of Slaten (6-foot-0, 230 lbs.) with his upper-80’s heat and low-80’s slider, but his velocity dropped off big time this year. He’s held same side hitters to a .212/.276/.331 batting line with 65 strikeouts and 21 walks in 287 career plate appearances, but those numbers are worse since his 2009 breakout (.259/.323/.406 with 33 strikeouts and 11 walks in 156 plate appearances).

Peter Moylan, RHP

Unlike the other guys mentioned in this post, Moylan would be an injury reclamation project. He missed basically the entire 2011 season with a bulging disc in his back, and he just had surgery on his labrum and rotator cuff in September. It wasn’t a total repair, more of a cleanup that will keep him on the shelf for six months.

The 33-year-old from Australia is a low-arm slot righty specialist more than anything, using an upper-80’s sinker and upper-70’s slider to get ground balls (career 64% grounders) and hold righties to a .215/.276/.301 batting line over the last six years. Moylan won’t strike many guys out, not even righties (23.0% strikeouts), and he’s damn near unusable against lefties (.277/.406/.381 career). It remains to be seen how Moylan’s stuff will rebound following the back and shoulder injuries, but he’s basically another Luis Ayala, just with more ground balls and fewer strikeouts. You can do worse as the seventh guy out of the bullpen.

An Informed Opinion of Yu Darvish

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(Junko Kimura/Getty Images)

Yu Darvish has been and will continue to be a hot topic for at least another week, until we learn which MLB team placed the highest bid for his negotiating rights. It could very well be the Yankees since they have the most money and the need in the rotation, but if you believe what they’ve been saying the last few days, they might not even make a bid at all. I have a hard time believing that, but I guess stranger things have happened.

Meanwhile, until we find out who wins the bid, we’re left debating why the Yankees should or shouldn’t pursue Darvish. We all have our own opinions, but for the most part we’re lacking information. We just don’t know much about the guy, just what we’ve ready over the last year or two. I’m not sure many of us have seen him pitch regularly, and it’s tough to have an informed opinion that way. In an effort to shed some light on Darvish, I’m bringing in Patrick Newman of the indispensable NPB Tracker for some help since he’s actually seen the guy pitch pretty regularly over the last few years.

I met Patrick for the first (and only) time this part March, while in Arizona catching some Spring Training games. We chatted about Darvish and some other players, but what stuck with me most was the list of flaws Patrick rattled off about Japan’s best pitcher. One thing I remembered was him saying that Darvish would get away with some pitches in Japan that MLB hitters wouldn’t let him forget, but otherwise I couldn’t remember much of the conversation. I asked him to repeat that list of flaws to share with the RAB faithful, and he ended up writing nearly 450 words about Darvish. Here are those 450-ish words, unabridged…

First of all, you have a really good memory.

My assessment of Darvish was based on what I saw last season (2010). My big concerns were that he seemed to go to his vertical slider (which is really more like a power curve) quite a bit, and my perception was that he was leaving a lot of them hanging over the middle of the plate. NPB hitters seemed to foul those pitches back a lot of the time, and he wouldn’t get away with those types against MLB hitters. Also last year, he showed a lot of 90-92 mph fastballs, and would top out around 95.

This season he was a lot better. The most obvious difference was his fastball velocity, which was more consistently around 94 and touched 97 on his best days. His cutter seemed to take a step forward this year, giving him three pitches above 90 mph with movement (2-seamer, 4-seamer, cutter). I think the velocity gains are real, as he added 10 kg of strength to his frame last offseason. I didn’t really see the same mistakes with his slider this year, he actually looked like he was using all his stuff effectively. There would be times when decent hitters would start to catch up and foul off his harder stuff, and he’d come right back with a slow curve or softer slider, and the hitter would be helpless. So he looked better overall this year, and my concerns about his mistake pitches and velocity are mostly gone. He’ll certainly still make the odd mistake, as he’s not a robot, but I’m more optimistic about him than I have been of anyone in the past.

Most of these are eyeball-level observations, drawn from memory of the games I watched during the season. So grains of salt apply. Here’s some data for reference and additional context: http://npbtracker.com/data/player.php?p_id=242

This doesn’t mean that Darvish is without question marks. All the usual stuff applies — five-day rotation, different ball, different mound, facing batters that can actually hit home runs, being prepared mentally, coping with travel, etc. I have the impression that Nippon Ham has really let Darvish do his own thing — he tends to tweak his delivery a lot, more than any other pitcher I can think of offhand. Who knows if an MLB pitching coach is going to be cool with that? Also keep in mind that Darvish is going to have more pressure and attention than possibly any player that has preceded him. Ichiro was stalked relentlessly by the Japanese media when he joined the Mariners, but I don’t think the Americans necessarily expected much from him. American fans have been anticipating Darvish for years, so he’ll have the Japanese insanity and the American expectations to live up to. I think he will be successful though, and I hope he is.

I’m glad Patrick reminded us that Darvish isn’t a robot, I feel like we often get too caught up in expecting players — especially pitchers — to be perfect all the time. Jeff Sullivan of Lookout Landing is fond of saying that it’s not easy to throw a strike, and I think we often forget that. Anyway, it’s good to see that I wasn’t just making up all that stuff about Darvish getting away with mistake pitches in Japan, and it’s also good to see that he’s basically as good as ever at the moment. It would be hard for him to pick a better time to come to MLB.

The one thing that I think is important to point out here is that Darvish isn’t Daisuke Matsuzaka, the last mega-hyped pitcher to come out of Japan. Dice-K’s best season with the Seibu Lions was probably 2005, when he pitched to a 2.30 ERA with 226 strikeouts in 215 IP (9.46 K/9). You can make a case that his 2006 season was better — 2.13 ERA with 200 K in 186.1 IP (9.66 K/9) — but I don’t think it’s worth the argument. Now compare that Darvish, who over the last five seasons has averaged a 1.72 ERA with 217 strikeouts in 205 IP (9.53 K/9) for the Nippon Ham Fighters. Dice-K’s best season with the Lions would probably be Darvish’s sixth best season with the Fighters.

Anyway, all we can do now is wait, wait to see if the Yankees placed a bid and wait to see who wins the right to talk to the guy. Darvish certain passes the eye test as a 6-foot-5, 220 lb. right-hander that can dial his fastball up to 97 with an assortment of breaking balls to use when ahead in the count, but there’s always going to be that element of the unknown until he gets on the bump for an MLB team.