Friday, December 02, 2011

The One-Year Fallacy

I think we can all agree that 2011 was a disastrous year for the Minnesota Twins. Their win total decreased by a whopping 31 games from the season before, as nearly everything that could go wrong did.

But it was one season, and it's in the past now. It's time to look forward. That goes for the players that suffered through disappointing campaigns as well as the folks who continue to hold it against them.

Lately, I'm seeing too many fans and bloggers basing their entire perceptions of certain players on this one horrible season, and that just seems completely misguided when the game of baseball, by nature, is so volatile on a year-to-year basis.

From one season to the next, we've seen Francisco Liriano turn from erratic mess to elite frontline starter and then back again. We've seen Delmon Young go from imposing middle-of-the-lineup slugger to utter disappointment. We've seen Glen Perkins go from being unable to get hitters out in Triple-A to blossoming as one of the best late-inning relievers in the American League.

Fortunes turn quickly in this game. Careers are marked by peaks and valleys. And there are two players in particular that I see a lot of people giving up on after dramatic drop-offs in 2011: Matt Capps and Kevin Slowey.

Fans have widely lamented the notion that Capps could return in the closer role for the Twins next year. On this week's edition of the excellent Gleeman and the Geek podcast, John Bonnes went so far as to say that he'd hate a Capps signing regardless of the terms.

There are certainly reasons not to want Capps back, not the least of which being that he'd yield a high draft pick by signing elsewhere. But his merits as a late-inning reliever should not be completely condemned based solely on his struggles over the summer, when he was dealing with a forearm strain.

I'm no huge Capps fan and clearly the Twins have overpaid dearly for his services up to this point. But one ugly, injury-plagued campaign in a season that was filled with them should not cause people to ignore his lengthy track record as an effective reliever. For his career, he owns a 3.51 ERA and 1.20 WHIP, and when he was healthy in 2010 he was a perfectly adequate ninth-inning man. There's little reason to believe he can't return to that level of productivity in 2012 if healthy, and at the right price this would make him a fine closing option for a team that doesn't necessarily expect to contend.

As for Slowey, the Twins have given indications that they plan on either non-tendering or trading the embattled righty. For the most part, the fan base seems to be fully on board with this course of action. It's true that he caused plenty of headaches this year and didn't record a single win even in his eight starts.

It's also true that Slowey won 35 games the previous three seasons (more than any Twins pitcher other than Scott Baker) and is a 27-year-old with a career 4.7 K/BB ratio who will cost only $3 million or so in 2012. With their shoddy rotation depth and limited funds, can the Twins afford to give up on such a player after one tumultuous year?

Those who follow the Twins, and especially those who are involved with the organization, have their own personal conceptions about these players – the inevitable result of prolonged up-close exposure. But when trying to make decisions for the betterment of the team, sometimes it's best to remove ourselves and make an objective assessment of how players like Capps and Slowey are likely to perform next year and beyond.

Contrary to popular belief, their future performances are not necessarily dictated by what happened in 2011. If that were universally the case, the Twins would have an impossibly tall task in front of them as they try to return to contention.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Totally agree with you on Slowey. He has his warts, i.e. durability and stamina, but absolutely worth keeping around if only because the price is right. No doubt he'd be as good if not better than Duensing as a fifth starter, and I 'd probably take him over Blackburn too going forward.

Capps would have to come back for a fraction of last year's salary for it to be palatable and I'm not sure how big of a haircut he'd be willing to take.

p7 said...

I think the bulk of the vitriol towards possibly resigning Capps simply stems from his value as an "experienced closer" being far too overvalued by the Twins. The fact remains though that for a control guy to pump fastball after fastball high in the zone every single plate appearance is just not closer form. A 4.7 K/9 rate and 10 homeruns over 65.2 innings is just not ok to be trotting out to the mound in high-leverage situations. At a significantly reduced price (think 2 yrs/4-5 mil), Capps would be a very serviceable reliever. But the Twins are so much more advantaged by finding decent free agent relievers (think Dotel, Balfour, Uehara, Saito...)and promoting him than going for the "experienced closer" title and shelling out 7 mil (or more) as their payroll resources come close to drying up. Although Capps is due for a bounce back, it's hard to stomach the thought of him closing out games. The Twins are just so much better served by finding 2 decent but unexceptional relievers.

Matt Groff said...

I'm not happy with just keeping Capps simply because he represents a panic trade of Wilson Ramos and thus any chance of long term catcher depth behind Mauer. As good as Doumit might be, he's never played a full season. Ramos was quite productive in his first full season behind the dish, and is only going to get better. Capps reminds me too much of that huge 2010 mistake.

Aside from that, I'm frustrated the twins haven't gone after cheap bullpen options. It's rather obvious that the arms in the system are not adequate enough to handle late inning pressure. Sure Perkins looked good, but outside that everyone else was subpar. Why not go after a Broxton? A perfectly capable relief man who was only seeking $4million a year and has had success at the major league level, he at least gives you as much a chance of health and success as a Matt Capps, and for roughly the same price or less. He only wanted a 1 year deal, that would have been perfect for the twins.

I've always liked Slowey, despite his rifts with the team over not starting enough. Obviously he is pretty valued if he hasn't been moved for a sack of potatoes yet. Does he answer the rotation questions? No, but he does provide a cheap arm that could possibly be a serviceable middle of the rotation starter. They need as many of those kind of arms as possible as we've seen every year, most of them end up on the DL. But to say that's all they need is insane, the need a front of the line starter instead of throwing all your eggs in the Liriano basket.

I want the signing of Willingham so bad right now, and they have to make a push for Cuddy. That's 50hrs in 2 right handed bats that can play outfield and some IF positions in a pinch, the twins have lived of this flexibility in the past, ala Nick Punto.

Anonymous said...

Agree on Capps but it's time to get rid of Slowey. He wouldn't, like Perkins, work out of the pen. Since 09, he has thrown slightly over 300 innings w/83 ERA+, 1.1 WAR and a -2.8 WPA while making 3.6m in the cheap part of his career.

He can't even manage a basic QS, with all it's flaws. Managing a QS in 38% of his 52 starts. For all his warts, Blackburn has managed to give us QS in 55% of his 85 starts in the same time period. Slowey is an ineffective pitcher who burns out the bullpen. The fantasy that he could be a middle of the rotation starter (or better!) should be long gone. Blackburn and Duensing have both been better starting pitchers than Slowey since 2009. Spend his 3m on a reliever.

Josh said...

Agree with p7 on this one. For me it's less about Capps coming off a bad year or anything like that and more about being overvalued as an "experienced closer" and getting overpaid in 2012. If his price tag is going to be more than $3M a year, I just don't think he's a good value and I'm afraid the label will get him 30-50% more than he's worth.

But I agree in principle with the concept of not judging a player on one campaign. It's why getting too hyped up over Danny Valencia's 2010 was a bad idea, and why getting too down on him for his 2011 is just as bad a plan. The true player is somewhere in the middle.

Slowey on the other hand, is a player who we kind of know who he is at this point. 2011 was a total mess for him, but he's been below average in ERA+ for 3 years running and doesn't pitch deep into games consistently. He's the sort of guy who projects at best to be a 4th or 5th starter on the Twins, but might be better off with a change in environment. That's not a snap judgment, that's more the reality of the situation.

I would prefer trading him over non-tendering him, but I don't think it's a crazy idea to move on without him

Ed Bast said...

The Twins last "priority" right now should be closer. I don't care who the closer is; see if Gutierrez can cut it at $400K a year. Closer doesn't matter for a team that's not going anywhere. Don't trade players and don't spend millions on a position that doesn't matter.

If you keep Slowey (and Baker, and Blacky, and Frankie) as a starter, though, you will need to invest in a bullpen. 2011 may have simply been a bad year for Slowey, but as a major leaguer he's averaged around 120 innings/yr, and there's no reason to expect this to change. He cannot for the life of him pitch into the sixth inning. So to evaluate "Slowey at $3 mil/yr" as a bargain is misleading; you really need to evaluate "Slowey at $3 mil + someone to eat up his other 80 innings", which is less of a bargain.

Mike said...

Slowey was a September callup in 2007 and he largely wasn't with the MLB club in 2011. In 2008-2010, when he was a regular starter with the Twins the whole time, he averaged about 135 innings, not 120.

Not that 135 innings a year is good, either. He's had a few injury problems and he just seems incapable of going deep into a game. I thought being in the bullpen would help him, but not everyone is cut out to warm up that fast and be effective. He wasn't up to it.

All the same, I have to wonder who they could replace him with. When he was mainly healthy in 2008 and 2010, he threw 160.1 and 155.2 innings, respectively. You can't assume health with this Twins team, but that would be okay for a back of the rotation starter.

As far as Capps, I hate the Ramos trade, but it's time to move on from that. He had what looks to be an outlier year in 2009 and he had a rough 2011 while pitching at least part of the time with an injury. If the Twins can get him back for half of his 2011 salary, it's a move they need to consider.

Ed Bast said...

"In 2008-2010, when he was a regular starter with the Twins the whole time, he averaged about 135 innings, not 120."

Why wouldn't you count 2011? I didn't count 2007. In 4 years as a MLB starter (2008-2011), he's averaged 116 innings/year.

They could replace him with nearly anybody. Duensing, Liam Hendriks, etc. When you tally up his 120 innings and add in 80 innings worth of Alex Burnett, et. al. to get through the 5th and 6th, and the assortment of spot starts and callups to take his place during DL stints, Slowey becomes replacement level at best, and the Twins have these types of pitchers in abundance.

Curt said...

Giving up on Slowey is ridiculous. Unless he is beating up teammates and coaches, give him the ball.

Nick N. said...

A 4.7 K/9 rate and 10 homeruns over 65.2 innings is just not ok to be trotting out to the mound in high-leverage situations.

True, but there's little reason to expect him to repeat those rates in 2012 if he's healthy. Prior to this year he had never posted a K/9 below 6.2 in the majors. That's nothing great, but combined with stellar control, it's serviceable.

Mike said...

"Why wouldn't you count 2011?"

Because he wasn't a starter until the end of the year when everything went to hell anyway. He made relief outings three times very early on in April and ended up on the DL because he couldn't get ready to pitch in as little time as a reliever needs to get ready to pitch.

Then he pitched in long relief twice in May before making a short relief outing on May 20, again getting injured because he couldn't warm up fast enough and going on the DL. Then he went to AAA.

He didn't return to the MLB until 8/19, when he became a starter.

So you can include 2011 in all of this if you want to, but it skews things downwards quite a bit. He was only a starter for 6 weeks and he still took some time to get stretched out. Most of the stretching out happened in AAA, but still. And his trips to the DL, in 2011 at least, weren't attributable to his workload as a starter. You can't hold him to an IP standard over a full season for a starter when the guy was only a starter for 1/4 of the season.

Mike said...

And why would the Twins pull Duensing out of the bullpen again? First of all, I don't think that Duensing is better than Slowey as a starter. I think he benefitted the first two years when he was a part time starter, because other teams hadn't seem him. It isn't uncommon for a rookie to do well initially, until hitters have seen them. Then they regress to what they're capable of. That seems to be what's happened to Duensing, IMO. He did put up a decent number of quality starts, but he still had a WHIP over 1.5 and an ERA well north of 5. He also averaged about 5.5 IP per start and seemed to completely fall apart at the end.

Second of all, pulling Duensing from the bullpen really reduces his effectiveness. In his time in the bullpen, he's shown that he's a very capable reliever. The Twins need all the affordable help they can get in that respect.

And I'm not sure what makes you think that Hendricks will be able to step in and be a capable MLB starter. I'm not saying he wouldn't be, but he only came up for four starts last year and had a WHIP of 1.5 and ERA of 6.17. And he averaged less than 6 IP per start.

I certainly don't think Slowey is ideal, but it seems that the fans are making him out to be much worse than he is so there is another convenient scapegoat.

Ed Bast said...

"I certainly don't think Slowey is ideal, but it seems that the fans are making him out to be much worse than he is so there is another convenient scapegoat."

My point isn't to "scapegoat" Slowey (for what???). And Slowey might be incrementally better than Duensing, I don't know. My point is, these guys are all more or less interchangeable - Slowey vs. Duensing isn't going to make much, if any, difference over the long haul. Henricks is in the same exact mold. Same for Blacky. Baker will get hurt too. I'm yawning just typing these names.

The point is, they're interchangeably mediocre. Whichever combination you pick, it simply isn't going to matter, and it certainly won't make this team "contenders". The only impact you're going to make on the staff is to change its makeup.

Nick N. said...

My point is, these guys are all more or less interchangeable - Slowey vs. Duensing isn't going to make much, if any, difference over the long haul. Henricks is in the same exact mold. Same for Blacky. Baker will get hurt too. I'm yawning just typing these names.

Duensing needs to be in the bullpen. Hendriks probably is not even a mediocre MLB pitcher at this point. Blackburn is coming off surgery and hasn't had a decent season since 2009.

Slowey is no ace and might not cause you much excitement, but even it helps to have him around with the depth issues being faced by the rotation. Sometimes you need to build from the ground up.

John Gregory said...

P7 said: "Although Capps is due for a bounce back, it's hard to stomach the thought of him closing out games."

I believe all sentences including the name Capps should include, as this one does, the word "stomach".

Mike said...

All season long, I heard people blaming Slowey for a good part of the Twins' struggles. That talk slowed down when the team faltered so badly that you couldn't possibly leave all of the blame on just one or two people. And it wasn't any secret during the season that the FO doesn't like him.

Yeah, Slowey is replaceable, but if you replace him with Duensing, the bullpen is worse, so it's a net loss. And I don't see anyone in the minors that would be capable of providing Slowey's worth to the team.

As far as replacing Slowey with someone from outside the system, it looks as though the FO tried to do that when they made a play at Capuano. Capuano signed a two year deal at $5MM/year elsewhere, which is nearly double the salary for Slowey for pretty similar production.

Career ERA are: Slowey 4.66, Capuano 4.39.
Whip: Slowey 1.30, Capuano 1.36
Slowey gives up slightly more HRs and his K/rate is a little lower, but he also walks far fewer hitters. Capuano DOES pitch more innings, though, and I would appreciate his durability. He doesn't pitch deep into games at all (about the same as Slowey), but he does make more starts.

Capuano also has pitched in the NL his whole career and hasn't had to go against a DH, getting the pitcher instead.

Just considering where the Twins are and how much replacing Slowey's production would cost, I don't see the point in not keeping him around another year.

Mike said...

"Slowey vs. Duensing isn't going to make much, if any, difference over the long haul."

So in one post, you say that the Twins don't need Slowey and imply they shouldn't keep him around because him starting means they will rely on an awful bullpen pitcher. And then you say that it won't make any difference if Duensing is starting, instead of being in the bullpen?

Is it even in dispute that Duensing makes the bullpen far better? And if they're replaceable players, which I agree that they largely are (as starters), isn't the team better to have one of these similar starters starting, but having the reliever in the bullpen? After watching the bullpen pitch embarrassingly bad, I think it does make a difference over the long haul.

Again, I certainly wouldn't mind if there was a better option than Slowey starting, but I don't see one on the Twins roster or in the farm system (that's MLB ready), they don't have the trade assets and probably shouldn't trade away their few remaining good farm players, and a replacement for these so-called replacement players is either going to be more expensive than Slowey, or a retread veteran (much like Livan Hernandez, or Pavano for that matter).

Ed Bast said...

"So in one post, you say that the Twins don't need Slowey and imply they shouldn't keep him around because him starting means they will rely on an awful bullpen pitcher. And then you say that it won't make any difference if Duensing is starting, instead of being in the bullpen?"

My point is that they're all interchangeably mediocre. No matter how you shuffle the crappy puzzle pieces the Twins currently have, you end up with a below-average pitching staff. If the aim is to improve the staff, you need to bring someone else in and quit worrying about Slowey vs. Duensing or Blacky or [insert any other soft-tossing finesse pitcher with arm problems]. If the aim is to settle upon the combination of guys internally who collectively suck the least, well, we may as well settle in for an extended run of mediocrity.

Ed Bast said...

Well, Nick, looks like both these issues have been "resolved". Is everyone still gung-ho on Terry Ryan? Or does the fact that he's now done pretty much the same exact thing as his predecessor last year - resign Capps to an outrageous salary, and trade a young starter for nothing - lead you to believe maybe this team needed a breath of fresh air at the helm, as I've been saying for years?

After the inevitable Cuddy resigning, I will ask again: what is this team's 5-year plan?

Folks, get ready for a long, long run of mediocrity. This organization is not interested in building for the future; it's all about maximizing the profits today.

Cal said...

Lets change your name to Ed BomBast.

Trading Slowey is an ok move. Signing Capps is not a huge difference maker, but it gives us some stability in the pen, and he was al All Star once and effective before the forearm injury, so I will give him the benefit of the doubt. Nobody should be judged on how they performed when playing through injuries.

And I am not adverse to signing Cuddy. He is solid but his price tag may be too high. We will see.
I don't mind Kubes coming back either. Its not my money. Or Ed's.

Matt said...

[i]resign Capps to an outrageous salary, and trade a young starter for nothing[/i]

Doesn't matter, people are going to find the positives with both moves because Terry Ryan is nearly a god.

The Slowey move, I get. How much better could he have become? His winning record is misleading, as is his status as 2nd "control" pitcher behind Halladay.
Hopefully at some point, there is some way, some how, to unload the other mediocre pitchers.

The Capps move, I don't get. Even as a healthy player, he was an average bullpen arm. But he's getting $4MM. No thanks.

Ed Bast said...

I don't really care about Slowey either, it's just hilarious that they traded him for nothing.

The funniest part of the Capps deal is the $6mil "option" for next year. Come on, they've resigned the guy twice now. They are clearly the only market for his services. We all know they're going to (unwisely) exercise that option, just make it a two-year deal already!

Anonymous said...

Liriano - volatility, injury make him a guess for everyone (Me too)

Blackburn, Slowey, Baker - We'll see

Mauer - will be fine

Morneau - done

Capps - terrible

I probably left off a few position players (Kubel intentionally). But come on, bring back all these guys healthy and compare to other halfway-good MLB teams. It's like we're fielding a AAA team + Mauer and Valencia and occasional pitching.