Trade Rumors - Oswalt to Phillies

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Fat Strat
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Re: Trade Rumors - Cards looking at Oswalt?

Post by Fat Strat »

My basic point is that you want to avoid throwing good money after bad.
I get that and generally, I agree. If this were the offseason, or early in the season, I would be arguing that same point. But, it's not. Maybe its the fan in me, but I care a lot more about winning this division and making the postseason than I do about our efficiency. There are starters avaialble. We can get them without doing any long term damage to our club. It will be throwing good money after bad, but we'll more than make up for that money in postseason revenue... if we can get there. And today, after losing a great start by Wainwright and just squeaking by after a great start by Carpenter yesterday, I'm more conviced than ever that we have to have another starter, regardless of Lohse or Penny's status. I think it's going to be hard enough to reach the postseason with one of Hawk or Supp in the rotation every week, even if we acquire a reliable 4th.

We're essentially throwing away 1-2 games per week with our current setup (even if we acquire another starter). We won't make it if that continues. The Reds will got hot, or offense will slump again, Carp or AW will get a blister... We need some margin.

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Jmodene
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Re: Trade Rumors - Cards looking at Oswalt?

Post by Jmodene »

Here are the game logs for Suppan and Hawksworth:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/playe ... &year=2010

http://www.baseball-reference.com/playe ... &year=2010

Suppan has made seven starts for us, with Game Scores ranging from 58 (his next-to-the-latest start) to 29 (his latest start). He's gone 35 innings in those 7 starts, although as pointed out above, he was limited in his first couple of starts since he'd been in the bullpen most of the year with Milwaukee; he went 8 2/3 innings in his first two starts, which means he's gone 26 1/3 in his last five - including six innings in each of his last two starts.

His peripherals are pretty bad, though, and the argument could be made that he's been lucky to do as well as he's done.

As for run support, the Cards have scored 16 runs in his 7 starts, while allowing 26 - 20 of those runs were charged to Suppan; six were charged to the bullpen.

So while it's true that Soup hasn't pitched particularly well for us, it's also true that he's gotten lousy run support - you aren't going to win many games averaging 2.28 runs per game no matter who is on the mound.

As for Hawksworth, he's also made seven starts - the first of which was his emergency start against the Dodgers on June 7. He joined the rotation for real on June 26 and in his six starts since then, has thrown 32 2/3 innings, posting Game Scores ranging from 57 to 24. he's pitched into the 80's or 90's in terms of pitch count in each of his last five outings, and was doing OK for awhile, but seems to have regerssed in his last two starts.

Run support: The Cards have scored 32 runs in Hawks' six starts since he joined the rotation, while allowing 31. Hawksworth has allowed 19 of those runs - including ten over his past two starts - while the bullpen allowed 12 (this includes the infamous Colorado meltdown in which Hawksworth allowed 2 runs while the bullpen allowed 10).

So Hawks has pitched better than Soup, and the Cards have scored more runs for him - and they've won 3 of his 6 starts since he joined the rotation (should have been four but for the meltdown) while they've only won 2 of Soup's 7 starts, again due as much to lousy run support as much as lousy pitching.

But - I am concerned about those last two starts by Hawksworth; he'd allowed just nine runs in his first four starts, but has allowed ten runs in his last two. That's not a good trend; indeed, it could be an indication that the league has "figured him out".

Either way, the sitatuion screams for us to get another starting pitcher, and I'm going to be terribly disappointed - but not a bit surprised - if the team decides to count on a Lohse comeback instead of making a deal. I almost hope Lohse is awful tonight in Memphis to remove that temptation.

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cpebbles
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Re: Trade Rumors - Cards looking at Oswalt?

Post by cpebbles »

Vidor wrote:I think that if one is suggesting that Brendan Ryan and Roy Oswalt are of equal value in any respect whatsoever, from any perspective, one needs to step back and reevaluate.
Give him A-Rod's contract. Suddenly Ryan is about $200 million more valuable than Roy Oswalt.

Marginal value is what counts. What their performance is worth minus what they cost.

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Re: Trade Rumors - Cards looking at Oswalt?

Post by taxman »

cpebbles wrote: Marginal value is what counts. What their performance is worth minus what they cost.
Only in a salary-cap or fixed-budget environment.

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vinsanity
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Re: Trade Rumors - Cards looking at Oswalt?

Post by vinsanity »

cpebbles wrote:Marginal value is what counts. What their performance is worth minus what they cost.
So I understand this, if their cost and production are equal, neither has more value.

But a team of replacement level players for league minimum might be as valuable as a $100M payroll full of players who are paid exactly what their value suggests they should. But one will make the playoffs and the other won't.

So even though Oswalt is getting paid exactly what he's valued at, even if Ryan is a 1 Win player and getting 1/10th of his value, what about the extra Wins that Oswalt adds over Ryan?

So they are are both getting paid their market value, but I don't think it makes them equally valuable.

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Re: Trade Rumors - Cards looking at Oswalt?

Post by heyzeus »

Jmodene wrote:Here are the game logs for Suppan and Hawksworth:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/playe ... &year=2010

http://www.baseball-reference.com/playe ... &year=2010

Suppan has made seven starts for us, with Game Scores ranging from 58 (his next-to-the-latest start) to 29 (his latest start). He's gone 35 innings in those 7 starts, although as pointed out above, he was limited in his first couple of starts since he'd been in the bullpen most of the year with Milwaukee; he went 8 2/3 innings in his first two starts, which means he's gone 26 1/3 in his last five - including six innings in each of his last two starts.

His peripherals are pretty bad, though, and the argument could be made that he's been lucky to do as well as he's done.

As for run support, the Cards have scored 16 runs in his 7 starts, while allowing 26 - 20 of those runs were charged to Suppan; six were charged to the bullpen.

So while it's true that Soup hasn't pitched particularly well for us, it's also true that he's gotten lousy run support - you aren't going to win many games averaging 2.28 runs per game no matter who is on the mound.

As for Hawksworth, he's also made seven starts - the first of which was his emergency start against the Dodgers on June 7. He joined the rotation for real on June 26 and in his six starts since then, has thrown 32 2/3 innings, posting Game Scores ranging from 57 to 24. he's pitched into the 80's or 90's in terms of pitch count in each of his last five outings, and was doing OK for awhile, but seems to have regerssed in his last two starts.

Run support: The Cards have scored 32 runs in Hawks' six starts since he joined the rotation, while allowing 31. Hawksworth has allowed 19 of those runs - including ten over his past two starts - while the bullpen allowed 12 (this includes the infamous Colorado meltdown in which Hawksworth allowed 2 runs while the bullpen allowed 10).

So Hawks has pitched better than Soup, and the Cards have scored more runs for him - and they've won 3 of his 6 starts since he joined the rotation (should have been four but for the meltdown) while they've only won 2 of Soup's 7 starts, again due as much to lousy run support as much as lousy pitching.

But - I am concerned about those last two starts by Hawksworth; he'd allowed just nine runs in his first four starts, but has allowed ten runs in his last two. That's not a good trend; indeed, it could be an indication that the league has "figured him out".

Either way, the sitatuion screams for us to get another starting pitcher, and I'm going to be terribly disappointed - but not a bit surprised - if the team decides to count on a Lohse comeback instead of making a deal. I almost hope Lohse is awful tonight in Memphis to remove that temptation.
Solid analysis; I agree 100%.

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cpebbles
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Re: Trade Rumors - Cards looking at Oswalt?

Post by cpebbles »

Salary caps are utterly irrelevant to this. If every front office has at least one guy capable of putting a win value on a player, and one guy with some idea of the value of prospects of different rankings, this holds true unless the front office disregards them. While you can make the argument that Minaya and Colletti are among the few relics who can't properly valuate a player to save their lives, they're both on very short leashes and unable to make miscalculations of tens of millions of dollars.

Vidor
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Re: Trade Rumors - Cards looking at Oswalt?

Post by Vidor »

Well, let's offer to trade Ryan for Oswalt straight up and see what happens.

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cpebbles
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Re: Trade Rumors - Cards looking at Oswalt?

Post by cpebbles »

vinsanity wrote:So I understand this, if their cost and production are equal, neither has more value.

But a team of replacement level players for league minimum might be as valuable as a $100M payroll full of players who are paid exactly what their value suggests they should. But one will make the playoffs and the other won't.

So even though Oswalt is getting paid exactly what he's valued at, even if Ryan is a 1 Win player and getting 1/10th of his value, what about the extra Wins that Oswalt adds over Ryan?

So they are are both getting paid their market value, but I don't think it makes them equally valuable.
A $100M payroll team being paid market value is a .500 team. The market is set so that only one team can really get to the postseason via the free agent market (The Yankees). For the rest, it's all about scouting.

This is actually why guys like Oswalt have little value. Since you can't just buy your way to a title, almost every post-arbitration player becomes fungible. Why give up a blue-chip prospect for him when you could have just spent the same money picking up 3.5 to 4 wins this past offseason, or again next offseason?

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Re: Trade Rumors - Cards looking at Oswalt?

Post by AWvsCBsteeeerike3 »

Couldn't you maek the argument that a win to the Cardinals/Phillies/Rays/Reds/Any Contender is worth more than a win to the Astros who are aimlessly amassing wins while contenders are either trying to make it to the playoffs or assemble teams that will be capable of making deep runs once in the playoffs. The money is 16 million a year. That is a sunk cost. But, if he brings you a WS title instead of missing the playoffs completely, obviously that is going to skew the value of his contract to a team.

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