Tuesdays with Brownie: Is the price to trade for Cole Hamels still too high?
(A weekly look at the players, teams, trends, up-shoots and downspouts shaping the 2015 season. This week: On Hamels' trade market, A-Rod's bonus fight and Jameis Winston's baseball future.)
A month seems a reasonable amount of time to grasp the broader frailties of a ballclub, peruse the standings and count up the Tommy John casualties.
Which brings us – granted, abruptly – to Cole Hamels.
The Philadelphia Phillies are precisely what we thought they'd be, while other teams similarly in transition are frantically swimming against the same riptide of bygone achievement. The Phillies once went all in, as they say. For good reason, too, as they filled their ballpark, made their money, satisfied their fans and played well into October for as long as a plundering model could sustain itself. Then, this – tired arms, distant shoreline and no signs of a rescue boat bobbing to the sounds of blenders and party music.
Teams in Atlanta, Texas and, to some degree, Boston and the Bronx are hoping to stay out of the same fix, where success gives way to years of paying off contracts gone bad and farm systems turned thin by the obligation to live in the moment.
Which gets us back – circuitously – to Cole Hamels.
Word is, the cost remains the same. Going on a year ago, that cost was at least two high-end prospects and then some. By that notion, for example, the Los Angeles Dodgers presumably would have had to send two of these three: Joc Pederson, Corey Seager and Julio Urias.
In his first month as a fulltime big-leaguer, Pederson, who turned 23 two weeks ago, has seven home runs, a .422 on-base percentage and is fifth in the National League in OPS. Seager, who turned 21 a week ago, spent all of three weeks of '15 in Double-A before being promoted to Triple-A. Urias, 18, is in Double-A and has 33 strikeouts in 26 2/3 innings.
You're the Dodgers and you just spent a month in which six pitchers not named Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke or Hyun-Jin Ryu made starts. Among them, Scott Baker, Mike Bolsinger and David Huff. Brandon McCarthy is done for a year. Ryu and his nagging shoulder issues are less than sure things.
So, do you sacrifice two of those three prospects for Hamels and nearly five years of control (at more than $20 million per)? Do you, in your vast wealth, offer one of those prospects and agree to take on Ryan Howard, because the money means nothing?
Cole Hamels - Salary by Season | PointAfter
Finally, there is no sense that Ruben Amaro Jr. will rush this, other than to begin the course of reconstruction. The St. Louis Cardinals lose Adam Wainwright. Red Sox starters have a 5.66 ERA. Rotations in Cleveland, Seattle, Baltimore, Anaheim and on Chicago's South Side are listing. Justin Verlander has yet to throw a pitch and might not until mid-summer. The market remains robust, and the only thing that could kill it is Hamels, either through underperformance or injury.
Meantime, as the season sorts itself, Hamels could have company out there. Perhaps Jeff Samardzija, Johnny Cueto and Jordan Zimmermann, and then a handful of starters in the second tier, such as Scott Kazmir and Bartolo Colon. Perhaps Ryu and Verlander are fine after all, and the Red Sox reorient themselves, and the Cardinals' next-man-up system flowers again, and the market grows soft.
Then what? Well, you keep swimming.
Statcast a mystery to the players it tracks
Statcast, the latest and greatest (so far) technology in a sport with way too much time on its hands, measures what was previously presumed to be immeasurable. It's stuff like outfielders' route efficiency and pitchers' spin rates and perceived velocities, and it comes in a package of nifty graphics that are fun for general managers and fans alike. First steps, banana routes, max speeds, they're all in there.
So, it's clearly a scouting or evaluation tool. And it's clearly an entertainment tool. But, an educational tool? A coaching tool? In the admittedly small sample size of two major league clubhouses on a Friday night in May, Statcast and its uses seemed a mystery to the men whose games are being Statcasted every day.
"It's like judging art," Dodgers outfielder Scott Van Slyke said.
And …
"I guess it would be good in track," Diamondbacks outfielder A.J. Pollock said.
And …
"Bottom line, if you make the play, that's all anybody cares about," Diamondbacks outfielder Mark Trumbo said.
If Statcast isn't reaching the clubhouses, it's presumably a product of teams endeavoring to understand/prioritize/package/present so much new information. Each game generates seven terabytes (one terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes, which sounds like a lot) of data, and that's how much arrives in a team's inbox. Every. Day. Just from Statcast. To a guy who plays ball for a living, that just might look like a knockoff Jackson Pollock.
Giants' Maxwell reflects on Baltimore situation
Justin Maxwell, whose productive April helped the San Francisco Giants survive the temporary loss of Hunter Pence, was born and raised within a 40-minute drive of Baltimore. He attended the University of Maryland. He was drafted by and played parts of three seasons for the Washington Nationals. His father, Austin, was a Navy man and presidential dentist for Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. His mother, Kathy, was a Navy officer.
As a young man, a baseball fan and an emerging ballplayer, he'd walk the neighborhood in the Inner Harbor and at Camden Yards, and now he is trying to understand how a community can be pushed to such anger, and where the blame, if any, lies.
"Maryland's my home," he said. "You never think things like that will happen in a place you live."
A relative on his wife's side is a Baltimore police officer. He's heard stories of decisions that must be made amid conflict. He also sees people lost and hurting and outraged.
The answers to Maxwell, who is black, are unclear. He recalls a family trip to the beach in Ocean City, Md. His father was pulled over by a police officer.
"Dad rolls down the window, 'How can I help you, sir?' " Maxwell said. "That sticks with me.
"It takes a lot of courage to be a cop. Those people put their lives in danger daily."
And, yet, he granted, there's no getting around the images of despair.
"I hope everybody stays safe and cooler heads prevail," he said. "Do it the right way. Make change happen."
Double standard for A-Rod's 660 'milestone?'
Alex Rodriguez is doing the smart thing and ducking questions about the $6 million the Yankees will withhold because (they believe) Rodriguez's 660th home run is not marketable. There is no sense in his debating this in public, not when he's already made so much money, still has so much money coming and does not typically fare well in public.
One curiosity though, is this: If the Yankees agreed to pay when Rodriguez reached widely observed milestones, but don't believe Rodriguez is worthy because of his connection to performance-enhancing drugs, then why is he due another $6 million were he to match Barry Bonds' 762?
The Yankees recognize Bonds' 762 but not Rodriguez's 660? That would not appear to be a consistent policy.
Jameis Winston's baseball future
Jameis Winston, who played football when not pitching for Florida State's baseball team, agreed last week to a four-year, $23.35 million contract that included the stipulation he not play baseball.
That doesn't mean Winston won't be selected in next month's first-year player draft, though one MLB evaluator speculated Winston could be ignored, in part because a late-round pick might not be worth the public-relations implications.
The Texas Rangers drafted Winston out of high school in the 15th round in 2012, and they do have an affinity for pro quarterbacks. They hold the rights to, for one, Russell Wilson.
The San Diego Padres selected Johnny Manziel in the 28th round last year, and over the years John Elway, Dan Marino, Tom Brady, Michael Vick and Colin Kaepernick were drafted, and there were plenty of others. Going way back, Joe Theismann and Ken Stabler were drafted.
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