Randy Choate Archives - River Avenue Blues

Scouting The Trade Market: LOOGY’s

July 26, 2011 by Mike 42 Comments

The Yankees’ perpetual search for a reliable left-handed reliever continues right before the trade deadline despite the millions and millions of dollars they’ve poured into players they thought were the solution. Part of the problem is that they’re chasing a unicorn, consistent and reliable relief specialists just don’t exist. By nature, their job is a small sample, and weird stuff can happen in small samples. Relievers are volatile, it’s just the way it is.

But still, that won’t stop them from scouring the trade market for a LOOGY before Sunday’s deadline. George King wrote today that the Orioles and Cubs had scouts at Yankee Stadium for last night’s game, fueling speculation about interest in Mike Gonzalez and John Grabow. This doesn’t pass the sniff test though, it seems very unlikely that the Yankees (or any team) would give up someone off their big league roster for those two relievers. Let’s explore them anything just because they’re very much available and appear to fill a need. King throws the names of Will Ohman and Randy Choate into the ring as well, so let’s tackle them too…

Randy Choate, Marlins

Here’s the guy the Yankees needed to sign this past offseason, not Pedro Feliciano. Even if Feliciano didn’t get hurt and was able to pitch this year, Choate is still straight up better. He’s faced 62 left-handed batters this year and ten have reached base. Seven have gotten hits (just two extra-base hits, both doubles), two have walked, and one was hit by a pitch. That works out to a .121/.164/.155 batting line, and he also has 23 strikeouts and a 64.7% ground ball rate against same-side hitters. It’s not a total fluke, Choate’s been doing this since he resurfaced in 2009. Because he’s signed through next year for dirt cheap (two-year deal worth $2.5M total), the Marlins aren’t desperate to give him away. It’ll take a decent prospect to pry Choate from Florida.

Mike Gonzalez, Orioles

The Orioles’ fail at a lot of things, but giving Gonzalez two years and $12M was as bad as decisions get. He was hurt and ineffective last year, though at least this season he’s provided some value as a situational lefty. He’s held left-handed batters to a .229/.280/.357 batting line with 18 strikeouts and 51% ground balls in 75 plate appearances. The Yankees (or any team, really) could probably get him for next to nothing, just some salary relief and a Grade-C prospect, if that. It’s worth nothing that Gonzalez and Rafael Soriano are very close friends from their days with the Braves, so perhaps having a buddy around lightens Soriano up and helps him pitch better.

John Grabow, Cubs

Another ill-advised multi-year deal for a lefty reliever, Grabow is making $4.8M this season, the second year of his two-year, $7.5M deal. In return for that investment, the Cubbies have gotten a 6.00 ERA in 69 IP since the start of 2010. Grabow’s value comes as a pure LOOGY since he can’t get righties out. He’s held same-side hitters to a .238/.314/.365 batting line with just 11 strikeouts and 41.2% grounders in 71 plate appearances. He’s another guy the Yankees could probably acquire for little more than salary relief, but there’s a reason he’d come some cheap. He’s just not very good.

Will Ohman, White Sox

The White Sox are a bad week away from blowing up the team, and Ohman is one of their few marketable pieces. He’s holding lefties to a .204/.283/.315 batting line with 20 strikeouts and 41.2% grounders in 61 plate appearances this year, but his contract is a bit of red flag. Ohman is making just $1.5M this year but is under contract for $2.5M next season as well. He’s not a rental, and although that’s not necessarily a deal-breaker, it’s less than ideal. The Yankees have enough money tied up in lefties as it is, even with Kei Igawa and Damaso Marte coming off the books after the season.

Since I know people are going to ask, yes there’s also Matt Thornton. He’s been one of the game’s best relievers over the last few seasons regardless of handedness, and he’s managed to regain that form somewhat after an early season hiccup. Left-handers are hitting .302/.333/.377 off him this year, but they’ve had sub-.600 OPSes off him the last two years. Thornton is owed $5.5M in 2012 and 2013 before a $1M buyout of his $6M option for 2014 comes into play. He’s not young remember, that contract will take him through his age 37 season assuming the option is declined. It’s easy to forget that you’re not trading for 2008-2010 Matt Thornton, you’re trading for the 2011-2013 version.

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The Yankees still have J.C. Romero tucked away in Triple-A, and he’s performed well in limited action. He’s faced 13 lefties for Scranton and just two have reached base (a hit and a walk) against three strikeouts and eight ground outs (that means zero fly balls). Romero has been effective against lefties in recent years, in between DL stints that is. I’m kinda surprised they haven’t called him up yet just to see what they have before deciding to pull the trigger on a trade, but it’s entirely possible his stuff and command are awful and the numbers against lefties in Triple-A are the function of a small sample size. Either way, I expect their to be a new lefty reliever on the roster one week from today.

Death of a Dream: Randy Choate signs with the Marlins

December 15, 2010 by Mike 26 Comments

Sigh. Free agent lefty reliever Randy Choate signed a two year deal with the Marlins this afternoon, landing a $2.5M total salary plus incentives according to Kenny Rosenthal. Choate, a former Yankee, was the best free agent LOOGY on the market when it comes to actually getting lefties out. I mean, who wouldn’t want a left-handed reliever that held left-handed batters to a .235 wOBA with an 8.9 K/9 and a 64.5% ground ball rate in the AL East over the last two years?

I guess we should all look forward to watching Pedro Feliciano’s homerun rate regress when the Yanks inevitably sign him.

Time for a Randy Choate reunion?

November 9, 2010 by Mike 36 Comments

Not long after the 2010 season came to an end, Brian Cashman let it be known that he’s looking to add a second lefty reliever behind Boone Logan next year. Damaso Marte won’t start throwing until after the All Star break because of shoulder surgery, nevermind rejoin the team and be productive. For all intents and purposes, the Yanks should consider him a non-factor for 2011. If he manages to contribute anything down the stretch, it’s a bonus.

Since the Yankees already have $4M committed to Marte and what could end up being another $1M committed to Logan (he’s arbitration eligible for the second time), I don’t expect them to go for a big name lefty reliever. Scott Downs (Type-A), Arthur Rhodes (A), Brian Fuentes (B), and Pedro Feliciano (B) figure to be the top names thrown around, but Rhodes was the cheapest of that group last year at $2M. There’s no reason to think any of them will take a pay cut after how they performed in 2010, and all but the 41-year-old Rhodes will likely get a multiyear deal this winter. There’s little benefit to signing a middle reliever for several guaranteed years; the Yankees have learned this the hard way with Kyle Farnsworth, Steve Karsay, and of course Marte.

I was originally planning to look at some of the second and even third tier free agent LOOGY options in this post, but after my initial research I came to an unsurprising conclusion: they all suck. Seriously, pretty much all of them. Joe Beimel can’t miss a bat to save his life, Dennys Reyes puts way too many guys on base, Bruce Chen is Bruce Chen, Mike Hampton … you get the point. There’s only player that stood out from the pack, and it’s an old buddy of ours.

Now 35 years old, Randy Choate originally broke in with the Yankees way back in 2000 after they selected him in the fifth round of the 1997 draft. He was often miscast as a long reliever under Joe Torre’s watch, which is why 231 (or 57.9%) of the 399 batters he faced in his Yankee career were righthanded. Choate bounced between Triple-A and the big leagues from 2000 through 2003, eventually being dealt to the Montreal in the first Javy Vazquez trade.

The Expos didn’t keep him long, trading him to the Diamondbacks for John Patterson during Spring Training the next year. Choate spent parts of four seasons in Arizona, again going back and forth between Triple-A and big leagues without being able to establish himself. The D’Backs cut him after the 2006 season, and he signed minor league deals with the Twins, D’Backs again, and Brewers. It wasn’t until he landed in the Rays organization (on another minor league deal) that things started to break his way.

Tampa started Choate in Triple-A last year, but they quickly called him up in May and made him a bullpen mainstay. Unlike Torre and whoever was running the show in Arizona, Joe Maddon seemed to understand that a side-arming lefty with a mid- to high-80’s fastball probably isn’t the guy you want to face righty batters. Eighty-three of the 142 batters Choate faced in 2009 (58.5%) were left-handed, and he held them to a .190 wOBA, setting down more than a quarter of them on strike three. When lefties did manage to put in play again him, 68.5% of them hit it on the ground.

The Rays gave Choate his first guaranteed big league contract in half-a-decade last winter, signing him to a one-year deal worth $700,000 to avoid arbitration. Maddon wisely used him primarily against lefties again this year, this time to an extreme. Of the 187 batters Choate faced in 2010, 138 of them (73.8%) were left-handed. Choate again did a great job of keeping them in check, leading the league with 85 appearances and holding lefties to a .261 wOBA with 9.17 K/9. Again, his ground ball rate was an astronomical 61.8%, far above league average. It’s not often that balls beat into the ground go for extra base hits.

For the first time in his career, Choate now hits the free agent market on a high note. He’s got two very good seasons behind him, and teams are perpetually searching for quality left-handed relievers. Choate’s familiar with the Yankees and the AL East and the Yankees are familiar with him, so perhaps that prior relationship gives Cashman a bit of an advantage. Strikeouts and ground balls are very desirable in the New Stadium, so there’s a pretty good fit here. He’s almost certain to be a more cost effective option than guys like Fuentes or Feliciano.