... and I hope to see you putting at least half your posts on the front page. It's pretty silly for you to bury such info-taining material in monitor-long comments. :- )
...............
I'll take the other side of the ping-pong table on this one, however, amigo...
If we were all playing in a roto league, and you, Grizzle and others reached a consensus that Brandon Morrow just isn't that valuable, I would respect that.
But the Tigers offered us Edwin Jackson for Brandon Morrow and change -- the reports were clear and source-varied on this one, including from the M's -- and Zduriencik validated this with the comment that he couldn't give up such colossal talent considering Jackson's service time.
Whether you're correct or not, whatever your arguments are, I think it's clear that the industry sees Morrow as a blue-chipper.
...................
I don't buy the idea that maybe Morrow had little market value, but DO think that your argument tells, in terms of our ranging Morrow against League. :- )
Wailing and gnashing of teeth on the Brandon for Brandon swap. Mostly, this is due to the (IMO - utterly preposterous) idea that Morrow has a shot at becoming a legitimate TOR starter some day. This belief is built primarily on a PERCEPTION of overpowering stuff with gaudy 10/g K-rates. This is further buffed by a visual perception of outstanding mechanics.
The perceptions of how good Morrow is - or might one day be - are built more on hope than of actual production and performance. In short, the strong tendency with Morrow has been to heavily weight each good performance and blithely dismiss all the bad ones. Hopefully, I can point out precisely why the perceptions of Morrow have been overly inflated AND explain why Captain Jack likely just dumped a guy who will AT BEST become a palatable set-up guy some day.
- His superb K numbers are primarily skewed toward relief. Career MLB K rates are 8.1 as a starter and 10.1 as a reliever. 8K/g ain't bad, but it ain't Nolan Ryan.
- The combo of superb mechanics AND horrid walk rates are an indicator that the walk rate is unlikely to ever improve. If his walks are not due to something fixable, they cannot be fixed. Morrow's 4.7 BB/g jumped to 5.7 BB/g in 2009. The Nolan Ryan experience indicates Ryan *NEVER* learned to harness his control -- he just actually began losing enough 'stuff' over time that he lost the "ability" to remain so wild. Ryan's control didn't improve until his mid 30s. Morrow is likely to follow the same path. His control is likely going to remain sickly until his ability declines.
- His walk rates aren't his real problem. Morrow might be a poor man's Ryan, if he had Ryan's incredible HR suppression. (Ryan had a 0.5 HR/9 for his career). Morrow's 1.4 and 1.3 HR/9 rates were posted in one of the best HR-suppressing venues in baseball. Once the league booked him, and the 7.1 BB/9 vanished, so did a liveable HR rate.
- Morrow's career numbers show a MASSIVE 0.8 to 1.4 difference in HR allowance. He's vastly superior at suppressing HRs as a reliever. As a starter, he's gophered way too regularly.
- The starter/reliever split is likely pushed by the fact as a starter teams can load up with lefties. His career LH/RH split is: .593 OPS vs. righties - while allowing an .810 OPS against lefties. The 15 lefty HRs compared to 8 righty (in almost dead even chances), is scary bad. Nobody talks about "righty" specialists in the pen. But, if there is a role where Morrow could survive, that appears to be it.
But, the real death knell for Morrow as a stud pitcher has little to do with his physical limitations. The problems are almost 100% mental. He has repeatedly shown a complete inability to develop consistency. His career path has been one of REGRESSION. He gets called up, runs fantastic numbers in year one -- has a brief flurry of success in relief in year two - sputters as a starter, (1.47 ERA balloons to 5.79 as a starter). Then, in year 3, puts up the worst numbers of his career in AAA, (6.5 K/9 with Tacoma). In '08 and '09, in roughly even innings, he allowed the same 10 HRs, but added 10 walks while losing 8 Ks.
His diabetes may or may not be a true physical issue. But, it is undoubtedly an easy excuse to use -- and Morrow's MENTAL facilities appear to be clearly lacking in regards to potential growth. Thus far, he's shown mostly only an ability to get progressively worse, despite having a HR-stingy park, and in '09, having the best defense in baseball behind him.
There's no evidence I've seen that Morrow can develop consistency. There's nothing to "fix" to allow this to happen. IMO, the idea that Morrow will simply magically acquire consistency and stop walking 5 guys a game - or begin bringing his A-game more than once a month is about the same probabiliy of HoRam developing an out-pitch this year. Loaiza did it - so it's possible. But, it sure ain't likely.
In League, the club picks up a guy who HAS shown indications of the ability to learn and harness his inate stuff and improve. Maybe 2009 was just a career year and Jack just got taken. (Jack hasn't shown great talent when it comes to pitching acquisitions thus far). But, I completely understand why Jack is wanting to trade the pheenom who has shown the ability to get worse in exchange for the pheenom who has shown the ability to improve.
But hey, Morrow might some day solve his gopher-itis and do a year a two impression of Hideo Nomo. Stranger things have happened. Me? I'm liking the idea of a steadier version of Morrow in the pen, who has the resume to suggest he could work as an emergency starter, in a swing-man role at some point.
Comments
Passing on E-Jax for Brandon League is just plain stupid. I don't understand how the heck that happened.
Just taking a page from your book, Doc -- and visiting Opposite-Land. :)
I understand the reality that I'm likely to be walking the plank alone on this one.
But, as I noted above, while I think I'm getting a decent handle on how Z is viewing most of these trades - I also note that so far, Z's reads on pitching talent have been ... wanting.
All three of your least favorite Z-trades have involved pitchers. He seems to be fishing for "pitchers" rather than throwers, (in general terms). But, I'm thinking ORDER is in play here. The Morrow/Jackson rumors were all BEFORE the Lee trade. I'm thinking he didn't pull the trigger on the Detroit deal ... not so much based on talent or prospect differences, but because he got a call from Toronto and/or Philly AFTER the Morrow/Jackson trade rumors started heating up.
I said before the Lee deal that the club (for '09) needed a TOR and a BOR guy. If Jackson was the opening sequence for TOR acquisition, CLEARLY that gets dumped overboard immediately when you're looking at Lee instead. My intuition says that the more likely scenario (despite the rumors) was that it was going to be Morrow+ for Jackson, (as typically starters are valued more highly than relievers, and THUS FAR, Morrow just doesn't have the SP rep to warrant him being "overly" valued as an immediate starter. (A plus prospect or project ... sure, but not a true SP).
Having snagged Lee, I could see Z looking at the landscape and wanting to shore up the biggest problem with the club at the moment - the bullpen. Not a popular opinion, but I was waxing negative on the pen all through 2009, but most of the reality of how poor the pen was behind Aardsma and Lowe was lost in the giddiness of the winning season.
Having done some serious prospect dumping, Z needed to swing something to bring immediate help PLUS some farm food. The Jackson option was removed by the time the Lee deal was done. If Z sees a "bunch" of cheap BOR options to go with the Felix, Lee, Snell, RRS quartet -- then go ahead and shore up the pen with a guy satisfied with the pen who would be THRILLED with a chance to start some day, instead of a guy that either was never a true prospect - or who the previous regime had damaged beyond repair before Z arrived.
But, yeah, if Detroit REALLY was offering Jackson+ for Morrow, then your argument of Morrow's market value carries weight. Honestly, I was never high on Morrow OR Jackson, (though Jackson in many ways is the SP version of League on several levels).
Probably the biggest difference between me and most of the blog-o-sphere is that I value CONSISTENCY in pitching far, far more than dominance. Smoltz was twice as dominant as Maddux. Maddux was twice as good, (until Smoltz eventually learned consistency). Wash showed what a barely above average pitcher who is CONSISTENT can do during 2009. I'd rather have RRS pitching "well" 80% of the time than Morrow pitching "fantastic" 10% of the time. (hyperbole, but you get my drift).
Is a very intriguing suggestion.
Gillick, as an ex-pitcher himself, was phenomenal with pitchers. But there are a lot of scouts, with hair-fine feel for the 9 guys around the diamond, who are a little less inspired with the strange animal that is the baseball pitcher.
Who was it who said, "pitchers aren't ballplayers"? Was that Greg Maddux or somebody? :- )
................
Am not convicting Zduriencik of bad judgment on pitchers. Not at all. He or Wakamatsu or somebody made a lot of awfully nice finds in the 4-5 slots last year, Vargas and Fister and others. But it's an interesting idea.
I thought it was a no brainer... Z overplayed his hand here. Its probably his first really bad move.
I mean, Morrow is probably a bust and League is going to be great...but you can't pass on Ed.Jackson for Morrow+Kelley..
this trade down to a fairly simple paradigm. Jack wanted a 90% lockdown RP more than he wanted a 50% lockdown RP/20% MOR starter/30% flameout. I think this trade demonstrates Jack's lack of confidence in Brandon Morrow more than it demonstrates his high appraisal of League and Chavez.
Roughyl equal service time, essentially equal RP results and similar player profiles just screams to me that he was done with the roller-coaster that has become Brandon Morrow's career path. He wanted projectability and consistency from this particular roster slot, and I think he got it.
I'm not saying I agree with the trade, because I don't. I don't think it's stupid, or ignorant, or a total loss, but I wouldn't do it. I'd hang on to Brandon Morrow, considering everything he's shown, and worst-case I plug him into the 7th/8th innings for as long as he can do it. There will always be the possiblity of him becoming a good MOR starter, and that's the kind of volatility which is healthy to have on your 25 man roster.
Jonez, I think the disbelief comes from Z passing Ed.Jackson and trading Morrow for League later on... I'm League's biggest fan, but thats a dissapointing turn of events as a fan.
Before I say them, I'll agre with you that if it was Morrow+(not too much) for Ed. Jackson, I do that in a heartbeat and am dismayed that we passed that up for this.
Firstly, I never value or assess a trade (or potential trade) when it says something like "Morrow+ for Ed. Jackson," because in my limited experience, the "+" usually means "plus one of your five best prospects." Not saying I didn't pay attention to the Morrow/Jackson rumors, but I'm not exactly going to get fired up over it one way or the other until I hear what the "+" means.
Second, I think it was someone on LL that outlined the need for a TOR and a BOR starter for the team, which forms a sort of paradigm in an of itself. Not sure I agree with it, but if that was the case, then Ed. Jackson becomes redundant with the acquisition of Lee. If it really is a situation where they wanted to take one (and only one) of "Lee, Halladay, Ed. Jackson, Javier Vasquez, John Lackey or Rich Harden," and one of "Bedard, Sheets, Marquis, Washburn or Davis," then I could see the rationale for passing on Ed. Jackson.
I think that in Jack's mind, the 25 man roster became more dependable as a result of this trade. He has more confidence in League's 2010 performance than he did in Morrow's, and they'll likely provide similar ceilings for that time period.
None of this is to address the mounting sentiment that Jack is not-so-subtlely clearing the cupboard of Bavasi 'spects.
But not on this one. Any number of sources, including some from Seattle, had it as Morrow + Kelley for Edwin Jackson. I think even the beat writers reported it as news-fact.
Christmas break, so this comment will probably never be seen :)
But the way I read those rumors (and BTW I can not actually find anywhere where it was reported as fact, although I only spent 5 minutes googling it) as it was Morrow and Kelly as the MLB portion of the trade. Then there was the magical "plus" which was the minore league portion of the trade. In fact I specifically remember Morrow, Kelly + Triunfel as being a widely circulated rumor near the end of the Jackson sweepstakes. I just have a hard time believeing that Morrow + Kelley and nothing else was ever an actual, real offer from the Tigers.
Anyway, while I doubt that it really was Morrow + Kelley for Jackson straight up. I have to admit I am quite underwhelmed by the return that we got for Morrow, and it definitely leads me to several conclusions.
1.) Morrow was never making it to spring training with the M's. For whatever reason Z just doesn't like the lad. Certainly Morrow has plenty of baseball related things going against him (wildness, no durability, HR rate, etc.), but the thing that I think REALLY got Z's goat, was the fact that Morrow tried to play him with the whole "I need to go back to the pen because of my disease" thing when Morrow really didn't just want to put in the hard Minors time to groom himself as a starter. Z saw that type of weakness and right then and there decided that Morrow was going to be trade come hell or high water.
2.) The rest of the MLB (except for possibly Detroit, who it seems Z overplayed his hand to) feels similarly about Morrow as Z does. There was one rumor that had Morrow going to the Brewers for Mat Gamel straight up, with the brew crew desperate for starters and apparently they must have said no, because that rumor fizzled out. I see Gamel as a worse version of Tui (probably can't stick at 3rd, and less power), a return I like even less than League + Chavez and a prospect that is completely redundant in the brewers system, and they said no.
3.) Z has so invigorated the M's fan base that the blogosphere has ran the train off of it's tracks. After pillaging the Phillies and cubs we built Z up into a demi-god, getting all crazy and somehow thinking that Morrow by himself, with z's hypno-eyes could bring back a P Fielder, or Morrow plus filler could bring back AGone. It was just not ever realistic, so it is silly of us to be disappointed in the return for Morrow because most of his perceived value was blogosphere imagination and hubris to begin with. FWIW I see this as one of the BEST things Z has done. He has returned confidence in the FO back to the fans. Which is something I haven't felt in YEARS! Way to go Z!
The Morrow-Kelly for Jax rumors were well attested amigo. Not feelin' like Googling them, but it was pretty cut-and-dried.
..................
Interesting thoughts. My general reaction, is that EVERYbody in the blog-o-sphere is working VERY hard for option A here:
A) Morrow is worth less than we thought
B) League is worth more than we thought
.....................
Somebody will have to explain to me why A) is so much more appealing. :- )