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Q. How many WAR do the Mariners gain from this deal?
A. There was a time when sabermetricians tried to apply the WAR/$ paradigm even to closers. "Yes, the Mariners spent $7 millions per annum, and received 1.5 WAR. That will do. Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?"
Yowch. It's 10 years ago that J.P. Ricciardi buried himself by shedding Billy Koch, and he had to spend like $40 mill (in 2005 money) to recover from his "Closers via WAR/$" paradigm. The bloggers are still judging Closers by simple WAR, but they're a good decade behind the sabermetricians who actually draw paychecks.
If Theo Epstein or Billy Beane ever grant you a job interview, I suggest you point out to them that Mariano Rivera and Joe Nathan have only accumulated 4 WAR apiece over the period 2011-13, and that GM's are behind the Fangraphs curve. It'll do wonders for your career chances.
A Wipeout Closer is a good example of the difference between (1) a collection of WAR and (2) a ballclub.
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Those dilwads are so mind-numbingly hypnotized by WAR that they haven't noticed we just gained our lynchpin #3 hitting Straw that Stirs, a Real Closer, and Oh By the Way (imminently) a .500 slugging Cleanup Hitter, who bats from the right side of the plate.
They don't think in terms of cleanup hitters and closers. They're dilwads. I mean it in a nice way.
Q. Is Rodney a "real closer?"
A. He is, yes.
Ron Shandler's BaseballHQ paradigm is: a closer is somebody with TOG -- Talent, Opportunity, and Guile. (By "Guile," Ron is referring to a reliever's attitude about the pressure of the job; some guys are born Russells and some guys are born Peytons.)
In other words, if you're scrounging for setup men most likely to become closers, and lift you to a roto title, you are filtering by:
- Strikeout rate
- Pitchers who are LIKED BY THEIR MANAGERS (it's his call, not yours)
- Pitchers who do not freak out over the fact that the media will cheerfully lynch them for losing a game (see Mitch Williams and Donnie Moore)
For example, if you have a choice between Ryan Cook and Sean Doolittle in Oakland, you like Cook's 9 K and 3.6 BB per game more than you like Doolittle's 7K and 1.7 BB. Doolittle is more hittable, and a few sharp grounders go through, he looks un-closerly. In a vacuum, you bet on Cook to jell as Oakland's closer (not considering, for a moment, the fact that Oakland is a weird franchise).
Danny Farquahar, by contrast, fails bullet point #2 above. You're nervous even if he has the job out of spring training, because you know the org will bail on him at the first opportunity.
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Run through the list above and you'll realize that Fernando Rodney is a 24-karat Legit Closer. He likes the pressure, he's got "stuff" that looks very closerly indeed ... and now his contract gives him a comfort zone. Rodney will be one of the top closers drafted in 2014 ... you know, one of the 10-15 guys who will most comfortably rack up his 35-40 saves.
The bloggers will go, "Meh." But every GM in baseball will nod and go, "The Mariners realllllly helped themselves with that one." When I say "Every GM" I mean, 31 out of 31 other GM's.
It is obvious that the Mariners made a great move, helping themselves to a 2-year bridge closer here.
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Q. Is he too white-knuckle for you?
A. There are a lot of white-knuckle closers. I'd rather have Mariano Rivera or Trevor Hoffman, sure.
Aroldis Chapman walks way more guys than Fernando Rodney; I don't suppose the Reds are down in the mouth about having him closing their ballgames.
Joel Hanrahan always walked 4 men per nine innings, as did Jose Valverde and John Axford.
Kevin Gregg and Carlos Marmol walk more -- 5, 6 men per game. Marmol walked 6 or 7 the years he closed for the Cubs. The issue isn't really walks; it's the willingness to keep pounding the zone after you've walked a guy. Rodney does that.
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Q. What's the arrow thing?
A. Here's an info-taining article on it.
Cross-reference that article with the "G" in TOG.
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Q. Is it an issue that the M's "Big Three" relievers now all walk guys?
A. It's a big issue. It's maybe the only issue remaining in the pen.
Tom Wilhelmsen walked 4 per game last year, but more to the point, on a given night his BB rate might be effectively 10 men per game. Danny Farquhar had a decent BB rate in his short trial, 3.6 but if you think that means he is impervious to walking 5 men a game next year, you're kidding yourself.
Medina walks 5 per game; Charlie Furbush has the worst throwing motion in O.B.
The Mariners are one Shigetoshi Hasegawa away from being ready to go in the bullpen. Until they find him, it's Blake Beavan or Erasmo Ramirez trying to Get Shiggy With it.
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Q. So if Dr. D loves the Rodney deal, and is more bullish on Hart and Cruz than other bloggers ... then with Robinson Cano, he must be thinking this is a kick-tail offseason.
A. Don't forget the #1 catcher we have, volunteering to back up Mike Zunino. And the indications they're making about Taijuan and K-Pax.
Yes, I like Hart and Cruz, in part because it creates a Billy Beane situation, 9 legit MLB hitters competing for 5 slots. And in part because it completely fixes the LHP Achilles' heel.
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In the fantasyland where the M's sell Green Bay Packer public stock, and give the team to the fans, I'd be VERRRRRY happy to call this the SSI offseason, so we could take our bows when they called us genius.
We sure could use the Shiggy-esque 1+ BB reliever to stabilize things ... they say the front office is lobbying for more dinero. If they scored an Ubaldo, much less a Samardzija, between here and the wire -- instead of, or alongside, Cruz -- we would be talking an EPIC offseason.
... it's a delightful offseason if it ends now. But we're a TOR #3 SP away from EPIC.
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A right hand (1) Cleanup Hitter, a (2) Closer ... and a (3) $240M Straw that Stirs who makes both look invisible. And they haven't noticed it's a great offseason. Dilwads.
;- )
Just let the kids pitch, man, that's all we ask.
Cheers,
Dr D