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At long last the Beltre/Kotchman wheel spins. I know I've been Tweeting (@ChristinaKahrl) about the eventual publication of this article for days, but as the non-trade of Mike Lowell reflected, there's a benefit to waiting to evaluate a deal involving players with injury histories until after they have their physicals. Beltre passed his, so voila, there's finally something to talk about.

BOSTON RED SOX
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Signed 3B-R Adrian Beltre to a one-year, $9 million contract, with a $5 million base player option for 2011; traded 1BL Casey Kotchman to the Mariners for UT-R Bill Hall, a PTBNL, and cash. [1/7]

So the Red Sox have elected to take last year's wipeout on defense very seriously, because whether you look at just Defensive Efficiency (28th place) or PADE (18th overall), they weren't among the best, as well as behind both the Yankees and the Rays. So, getting Jacoby Ellsbury out of center and replacing him with Mike Cameron (from the entirely non-shocking developments file) came first, and now swapping in Adrian Beltre at third base after deciding that if nobody else thought Mike Lowell was healthy enough to play third for them, that was true in Boston too. You can call this a case of keeping up with the Joneses, but I guess I see this as a characteristic adaptation from a general manager who was already hip to defense back in 2004, when he traded away Nomar Garciaparra to bring in Orlando Cabrera.*

Whether you define the impact conservatively (via FRAA2) at perhaps 1.5 wins net, or liberally (via John Dewan's Plus/Minus) to wind up at a four-win swing on defense, the switch from Lowell to Beltre figures to make a significant impact. I don't know if I'd quite go all the way to four wins of difference, because Marco Scutaro's quality play at short figures to hoover up a few opportunities, which is another improvement on 2009's crew that, in isolation, was going to add up to perhaps another 1.5-2.0 wins. Switching from Ellsbury to Cameron should be good for at least another win or two, whichever system you use. Still, could the Sox really have added as much as eight wins on defense this winter? Since most defensive metrics are more suggestive than substantive, I might ballpark the difference at four or five, no small matter, especially for a team that, with the addition of John Lackey, should have a rotation that rates with any in the game's best division.

The other thing to remember is that these Sox have better depth than last year's. Taking on Jeremy Hermida gives them an alternative to Ellsbury in left, or to J.D. Drew if Drew breaks down, or to David Ortiz if Papi's pop-less. Add in the near-readiness of prospects like Ryan Kalish and Josh Reddick, and we're clearly not in Mark Kotsay territory any more. The other element that adding Beltre does is buy time to see if Lars Anderson's going to get his prospect status back in order. Whether that takes a year or two, they have Beltre in play to fend off that particular day until Anderson makes the case for himself. (Of course, even then, we'd be talking about Kevin Youkilis making the move back to the hot corner at 32 or 33, and that may no longer be doable at that point.)

But will Beltre's bat play well enough in Fenway? We can set aside his awful career performance in Fenway; batting .179/.299/.232 in 16 games against a quality staff over five years is about as small-sample meaningless as a splice can get. Safeco was sapping his power by about 30 points of SLG relative to his career average, so a return in a healthy season to the .450 to .470 range would range from reasonable to mildly optimistic. He doesn't walk, but he should rebound from last year's career-low four percent rate, and with health, his clip for homers on fly balls should recover as well. They'll end up giving up a win or two at the plate, but it's still a net positive.

Does the deal make financial sense? The first year's far from cheap, especially for a player who might have had to fend off some show-me considerations after last year's injury-undermined campaign. Happily for him, with the present-day tendency to invest some hope and faith in defensive metrics, his market value didn't suffer too many dings. He'll achieve a $1 million buyout on his option at 575 plate appearances, and the option kicks up to $10 million for 2011 if he reaches 640 PAs. He's reached that mark just three times in his career, but it should be more achievable hitting in a quality lineup and should he remain healthy.

So what of Lowell now? It isn't the worst thing to have him still, even if he's currently bench-ward bound. As noted, Papi's hardly got cause to complain if he loses playing time, especially if it involves all starts versus lefties; should Ortiz repeat last year's early struggle to produce anything, Lowell might claim an even larger share of the at-bats. I figure it's more likely that Boston tries to reclaim some share of Lowell's 2010 payday by absorbing some of the expense to employ him somewhere else, but we're talking about opportunities at first base and DH, and much of the AL has already made its choices on that score.

Post-Publication Postscript: Ah, the rush to publish. I failed to bring up Bill Hall's benefits to the Red Sox. I see them as somewhat limited. We don't know that he'll do better now that he's back in a utility role, because after three years of failure as a regular at center and then third, what's on tap is reclamation, not a return to his 2006 peak season. As a worthwhile offensive contributor from the bench, he'll give the Sox a little of everything besides speed: some power, a few walks, roster space-saving (since he can play at least six positions). Mostly, what the Sox get is what the Mariners had: a utilityman whose upside is that he can be a good utilityman, and since the Brewers are footing the bill now as before, that's a nice little thing to have.

*: No, boys and girls, the Rays did not invent defense, or moves made to improve on defense. Neither did Theo Epstein, for that matter, and one of the lovely things about history is that it's the product of several zillion yesterdays that came before yesterday. Now, that middle-aged observation off my chest, get off my lawn before my sciatica makes me crotchety.

OAKLAND ATHLETICS
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Re-signed DH-L Jack Cust to a one-year, $2.65 million base contract; designated 1B/3B-R Tommy Everidge for assignment. [1/7]

So, Cust got to be a free agent, and we all know free agency equals raises, right? Not so much. Last year, with arbitration spurring the negotiations, Cust made $2.8 million with as much as $450,000 in potential bonsues. (Some of them were somewhat improbable, like $50,000 for winning a Gold Glove.) So, in 2010, rather than re-spin the arbitration wheel, the A's non-tender Cust, liberating him to the wider market… so that they could give him a slight pay cut, albeit one not weighted down with the probable insult of trying to cut his pay via arbitration, and also free from the general dopiness of the panels themselves. Instead, Cust got to see that his market value wasn't worth more than what he was already making, and wound up settling for this deal, although this time around his incentives are PA-driven, and he could make as much as an additional $350,000, or slightly more than he did last season. So much for the "restraints" of salary arbitration.

Admittedly, I think that last particular talking point is wedded to a focus on top-tier players: of course the best players see their overall earning potential suppressed through arbitration. But the impact of the increasing number of non-tenders on baseball's middle class is that it achieves some of what Charlie Finley proposed, and Marvin Miller feared: it increases the number of players on the market, and can depress the kind of compensation they'll make. So for some serfs, there's clearly more to lose than their chains. Because non-tendered players and their employers are no longer handicapped by the old rule about re-upping with one another, the A's and Cust were free to get re-hitched after a quick review of the available DH jobs reflected that he wasn't going to find many other bids, and the A's were free of the rigmarole of going through the arbitration process while retaining Cust.

That said, was it a good idea? It certainly helps channel the Chris Carter vs. Daric Barton fight at first base into an early-season either/or proposition, because at least initially in-season, it's hard to envision the A's picking both and sitting Cust. So, Barton might have a multi-week or even a multi-month bid on the job, not unlike Rob Nelson in 1987, after which Carter's pure mashtastic excess might enter into the lists, perhaps not that much like Mark McGwire. It's up to Barton to make himself part of the picture after Carter arrives, and the only spot where that's likely will be if he hits well enough that Cust becomes a bench bat behind the younger duo.

The sad problem is that Cust's beginning to look like an old-player skills DH type who has shot his bolt: his EqA during his three-year run with Oakland has gone from .319 to .302 to .277. His walk rate's dropped from 20.7 percent to 15.2 percent. His ratio of homers among all fly balls dropped steeply last year, but in general he's putting more balls in play and swinging more often, and as a fly-ball hitter putting more balls in play means more fly-ball outs, and that's going to eat away at most people's home-run rate. How much of this is a batter the league's pitching has adapted to, and how much it's Cust's moving into his 30s, remains to be seen. While he improved in the second half (up to .250/.399/.426 after a .232/.322/.411 first half), there were a few odd developments last year as far as his struggling to do any damage against power pitchers, as his struggling against starters in his third at-bat after already losing ground from his first to his second.

SEATTLE MARINERS
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Acquired 1BL Casey Kotchman from the Red Sox for UT-R Bill Hall, a PTBNL, and cash. [1/7]
Signed CF-R Franklin Gutierrez to a four-year, $20.5 million contract extension, with a club option for 2014 (avoiding arbitration). [1/8]

Ah, the tragedy of evil geniusdom. Because let's face it, Jack Zduriencik's got all of the appurtenances, a la Ernst Stavro Blofeld: Bald pate? Check. Fiendishly clever plan for total domination? Check. Shortage of vowels? Check. Nearby volcano retreat? See what I mean? It's just too easy, although I don't think he was wearing a Nehru jacket at the Winter Meetings.

The tragedy is that, as with any evil genius' plan for total domination, there's the one part of the nefarious scheme that just goes begging for self-foiling. Often, it's describing this handicap in the plan at length; I encourage all aspiring evil geniuses to try to break themselves of this habit via playing it out of themselves by picking up a copy of the game formerly known as Before I Kill You, Mr. Bond (designed by a Seattle resident, no less).

Sadly, no amount of evil glamour, head-shaving, or table-game fun is going to cure you of the handicap to any quest for domination: poorly selected henchmen. (Certainly, there's a large number of people in Chicago completely sold on the suggestion that Milton Bradley's up to no good.) Kotchman is perhaps the biggest tease on the first-base side of things since, who, Travis Lee? David Green? Mickey Vernon, equally ill-starred but without the good bits? Kotchman's a plus defender by reputation, which is lovely, and fits in nicely enough with a club. He's certainly had his problems in the past, having seen his career stalled or derailed by mono early on; that wasn't recently, however. In three years as an everyday big-league first baseman, his EqA has dropped from .287 as an Angel in '07 to .258 and .261 as he skipped from Anaheim to Atlanta to Boston to the bench. His ISO has dropped from .172 to .137 to .114.

That said, I do expect some measure of improvement. Maybe being traded by the Angels, the team that employs his dad, was shocking. Maybe he was pressing with the Braves, and that only got worse as he started to go stale as a reserve with the Red Sox, with his EqA plummeting from .276 as a Brave to .203 with the Red Sox. He'll only be 27 in 2010, and there doesn't seem to be anything physically wrong. He seems like a reasonable bet to rebound, but the question is how high, and how much you allow for those aforementioned maybes. Never expected to become one of the big-time boppers at first base, Kotchman might wind up as a relatively cheap patch at the position, but it would be a surprise if he wound up regaining all of the ground lost since 2007, especially having to call Safeco home. However, getting back into the high .270s and providing value on defense doesn't seem like a stretch. His power won't return into the high .400s in SLG, but his walk rate should tick back up towards 10 percent as an everyday player. While the Mariners have their happy John Olerud-enabled past to encourage them as far as going with a medium-power first baseman, PECOTA's top comp for him is Sean Casey, a few cuts below Olerud-level goodness. However, add top-shelf defense to that kind of hitter, and that's a useful, complementary player to have.

The real question is whether it's useful enough in a lineup that's now counting on Milton Bradley as its left fielder and Ken Griffey Jr. as its DH. Do the Mariners really have enough sock from their corner slots? Having Jose Lopez at second and Gutierrez in center helps, certainly, but overall, this just seems a bit short of the slugliness you'd really expect to on a contender. While the decision to avoid pretending that Russell Branyan was suddenly going to become a reliable commodity seems sensible enough, the quandary is whether or not Kotchman fills the Mariners' need for power. Adding Bradley, Figgins, and Kotchman should net them at least 100-120 walks, which wouldn't quite put them at last year's league average, but it's a massive upgrade from their last-place finish in the AL.

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Sacramento
1/08
No comment on what benefits if any Bill Hall would provide to the Red Sox bench?
ckahrl
1/08
My thanks for the reminder, I tacked on two cents at the end in the Red Sox segment.
braden23
1/09
As a Brewer ticket holder, I would say the benefits are limited to some quality AB's on Mothers'Day...
louisma
1/08
There's much talk in the blogosphere about using a Saunders/Langerhans job-share in left, making Milton Bradley the regular DH with ocassional time in left, and making Jr. be chief cheerleader. I still don't think that gets them above middle of the pack, but it brings them closer to the middle I would think.
ckahrl
1/08
It might help on the OBP side of things, but it doesn't resolve the power problem.
llewdor
1/09
OBP scores runs just as well as power does. Given how badly Safeco hurts power, doesn't it make sense to design the team to score in other ways?
ckahrl
1/09
As I noted, they'll have improved in terms of total walks, but not a lot of that involves an improvement from Branyan to Kotchman, which effectively adds nothing but defense and a few base hits in exchange for a whole lot of power. And as the Rockies found out, you only play half your schedule at home. OBP wins everywhere, certainly, but Kotchman isn't Olerud.
sunpar
1/08
Kotchman just feels like the kind of player that GMs are going to dream on for a while: in his prime years, cheap, and talented enough defensively that if he could just become a league-average bat at 1B, he'd be valuable.

But at some point you have to recognize that he's been traded by 3 times now by teams with decent enough front offices that could have used him but decided to go in another direction.

Sure, you could say the Angels "sacrificed" him to make a run with Tex. But the Braves, an increasingly cost-conscious team, knew they weren't to extend LaRoche and yet didn't hesitate to give him up for a half year of LaRoche-- essentially giving Kotchman the same treatment they gave Francouer.

And now we have the Red Sox who could have put Youk at 3rd and used Kotchman at 1st, but decided to spend $14M on Adrian Beltre. Kotchman at 1st/Youk at 3rd vs. Beltre at 3rd/Youk at 1st could probably be a wash defensively (actually you lose about 7 runs with Kotchman over Beltre, if you use career UZR/150 of the three) while saving millions, which tells me that they think Kotchman in his prime might not even amount to Beltre-level offense.
sroney
1/08
I always thought Kotchman's upside was Mark Grace or thereabouts, which (I suppose) isn't all that bad. But as time went by, it became increasingly clear that that wasn't all that likely. (And I say this an an Angels fan).
ckahrl
1/08
A fair point, but even Mark Grace's upside wasn't seen as what eventually became "just Mark Grace" when he was coming up. Some felt Grace would have more power coming up through the Cubs' system in the late '80s, after 49 and then 54 XBH campaigns in '86 and '87.
dcoonce
1/09
I always saw Kotchman as belonging to the same group of 1B as Casey, Olerud, Grace and Wally Joyner - a good bat for any position other than a first baseman, basically. Joyner, Grace and Kotchman at least have/had defense to sell. I think the M's are going to have to find some offense from some other position, because right now that lineup looks pretty powerless.
ArthurCopeland
1/08
Thanks, Christina, for the Cheapass Games reference. As a Reds fan, I use to want to adapt "Kill Doctor Lucky" to feature Jim Bowden.
arcee555
1/09
I am not sure all the Boston moves are geared toward Defense, but just explaining away the moves they eventually made. Remember, they were trying to sign Jason Bay and were perfectly content to keep Ellsbury in CF. Beltre will provide much more offense than Kotchman would have (I know that is subjective, but wait till Mid Sept. to ream me out if I'm not right).
ckahrl
1/09
Of course Beltre will, but I think that's a false contrast; the real question is whether Kotchman in 2010 will outhit Lowell. Understandably, the Red Sox weren't going to settle for either half of that proposition, and didn't.
Oleoay
1/09
The semi-curious thing to me about the Red Sox is that their outfield is awfully left-handed and the Yankees have Sabathia and Pettite. As of right now, Cameron's the only right-handed hitting outfielder among Cameron, Drew, Ellsbury, Hermida and Reddick. Granted neither Ellsbury and Drew have severe platoon splits, but it makes Hermida a bit superfluous and harder to get the rookie Reddick regular at-bats. I'm not even sure if the Red Sox have a good right handed bat on the bench besides a faded Varitek.

In fact, the Red Sox could have an outfield that all bats left handed if Ellsbury plays center for Cameron one day, an infield that all bats right handed, and a switch-hitting catcher. Odd, huh?
200tang
1/09
One thing I have a problem with is " the quandary is whether or not Kotchman fills the Mariners' need for power". Honestly, you don't need power. The point of baseball is to not make outs.

I'll go a step further though, and say that the Mariners don't necessarily need anything more than an average offense. The team was probably ~85 wins on paper before the move and the upgrade from Carp to Kotchman is probably 1 win. Now, the one thing people will bring up is that they should have gone out for a guy like Delgado or Branyan or something since we need some more offense, but the one thing we're forgetting is that this changes the Mariners needs. Really, this isn't a Kotchman vs Branyan/Delgado/LaRoche. This is Bill Hall/Langerhans platoon & Branyan/Delgado/LaRoche vs Langerhans/RH OF platoon vs Kotchman. (Credit to Dave Cameron and Jeff Sullivan for pointing this out).

One other thing to think about is injuries. Even if we're expecting Milton Bradley to be a model citizen, he's a fragile player and can't be counted on for a full season. The same can be said for Branyan & Delgado. The Mariners really don't have the luxury of losing their middle of the order hitters and counting on Mike Carp & Tuiasosopo(?) to produce at those levels.

There's a lot at work in this deal and I don't think it can properly be evaluated, at least from the M's perspective, until we see what happens in the OF and rotation. And, at the very least, nobody can argue that Bill Hall has more value than Kotchman, at least not to the Mariners who have no need for a super utility player.
IvanGrushenko
1/09
Isn't Kotchman a terrible baserunner? Dan Fox's numbers seem to think so. I'm not sure he's much of an upgrade over Carp when that's taken into account, unless of course, Carp's equally bad.
Oleoay
1/09
Does it really matter if Kotchman is a terrible baserunner? Or even, if he is a terrible baserunner compared to Carp? That's kind of like saying Miguel Olivo is better than John Buck because Olivo stole four more bases than Buck did in 2009... the point is, you still have Olivo (or Buck) and could do better.
arcee555
1/09
two points.
1. Kotchman is a pretty good "get" by the M's. He is not a prototypical slugger, but all indications are he should be an ok hitter. A few long balls, some dbls, and respectable avg. and ob%. He is not going to be a star, but only 10% of MLB guys are. He hasnt done much at MLB level to date, but he is due for the above stated performances.

2.When it comes to power, you DO NEED IT. The teams that win consistently can hit it a long way. In the playoffs or when the opponents pitcher has it going, you need to score with few hits. Now you can walk, steal bunt, & SF, but an A-rod dinger takes just one guy doing the job, not four.
jpjazzman
1/09
Christina -

What are you thoughts on the implications of the Cust signing on Jake Fox? Makes that trade look a bit funnier, doesn't it? If you had to breakdown a guess of his PAs this season and games by position, what would you expect?
ckahrl
1/09
I'm hoping it puts Fox at third base quite a bit (I'll believe in a completely healthy season from Eric Chavez about five months into the next one that ever happens), not that the pitching's going to like it much.
IvanGrushenko
1/09
Christina, any comments on the A's signing of Lenny DiNardo?
Sacramento
1/09
Eh? Aren't you two years out of date Ivan?
harderj
1/09
Ah, David Green...traded with Dave Lapoint, Sixto Lezcaino, and Lary Sorensen for Rollie Fingers, Ted Simmons, and Pete Vuckovich, then dealt with Lapoint (again) and Jose Uribe (whose name at the time was reported as alternatively Jose Gonzalez or Uribe Gonzalez) for Jack Clark, then finally dealt for a player to be named later, Hector Quinones (who managed a .581 OPS in 5 MiLB seasons).

In the first trade, with Green et al going from Milwaukee to St. Louis, Milwaukee got a lot of value. Fingers had three good years as their closer, Simmons was the regular catcher for five years, and Vuckovich had one stellar season and one workhorse one before fading. Lapoint did give the Cardinals three seasons of better than .500 work, albeit with a WHIP of over 1.40 each year, Lezcano managed a .376 on base percentage, and Sorensen went 7-7 with a 3.27 ERA in their respective first and only seasons with the Cardinals. Green gave them four seasons, managing a high of .325 OBP and .422 slugging percent in his career best 1982 (when the Cards won the World Series).

Following the second trade, Clark gave the Cardinals two All-Star, M.V.P. vote garnering seasons out of three with the team before they let him go as a free agent. Green did nothing for the Giants, Lapoint went 7-17 (albeit with an ERA of 3.57 to go with his substandard 1.40 WHIP), and Uribe became a fan favorite, though rarely an offensive threat of note.

So while neither trade is quite Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, Jack Baldschun, and Dick Simpson, or Francisco Liriano, Joe Nathan, and Boof Bonser for A.J. Pierzynski, or even George Foster for Frank Duffy (or Frank Duffy and Gaylord Perry for Sudden Sam McDowell), those were some pretty good players Green was traded for, and he pretty much amounted to not much.

Maybe he was good when he played for the Kintetsu Buffaloes, but I can't find stats...


hotstatrat
1/10
Well, that was a hearty meal.

The way I see it, 2.65 million (as in the base Cust contract) must be the going rate for a low budget team just to make sure ready-for-prime-time prospects (Barton and Carter) don't get too cocky. Wow, baseball is a funny business.

Sacramento
1/10
Jack Cust will have a lower base salary in 2010 than Aaron Miles. Aaron Miles!

Billy Beane must've owed Jim Hendry a favor...
judyblum
1/10
My understanding is that Beltre's 2011 player option makes the AAV of his contract for 2010 luxury tax calculations $7M instead of $10M, as a player option is counted as guaranteed unless/until the option is declined. Also, trading Kotchman for Hall not only removes Kotchman's salary from their total, it credits them with the money the M's are sending via the Brewers against Hall's AAV of $6M, which means his salary will count as a negative. I don't know if the effect is enough to get them under the limit, but it helps explain their interest in trading for him vs. picking up a RHH utility player some other way.
ZacharyRD
1/10
I like the section on Cust - the breakdown the arbitration process is really interesting.
Oleoay
1/10
Imagine a different career arc where Cust was picked up by the A's and made a regular in 2005 instead of 2007 and produced similar numbers from 2005-27 as he did from 2007-2009. I bet he would've had a multiyear contract from some team for as much as 6 mil a year.
djgx39
1/10
One thing left out of the Red Sox defensive upgrade calculation is that even though getting Ellsbury out of center is a substantial improvement, getting him INTO left is another improvement. Based on his speed and his pre-2009 defensive metrics that showed him to be an excellent fielder in left, swapping him in for Bay is another huge upgrade that could be worth a win or two.

And while Cameron doesn't adequately replace Bay on offense, the upgrades at short and catcher (4 extra months of V-Mart) and the reasonable expectation that Beltre will produce something like what the Sox got out of 3rd base last year, and this may be a better offensive team than last year too.
Oleoay
1/10
Varitek had 408 plate apparetance last year. He'll still probably wind up with 200-250 since teams need a backup catcher and it can be hard to sit the captain of the team.

So the upgrade to Martinez might not be as severe as you think. Martinez might get a full year's of plate apperances, but part of that will be playing 1B to spell Youkilis, which makes the offensive production about a wash.

So in reality, I think that Martinez replaces about 150-200 of Varitek's plate appearances which is an upgrade. Even then, Bay has performed better offensively than Martinez based on career EqA (.305 vs .289). Scutaro has a career EqA of .258, last year representing the first year he was over .265.

My glasses just ain't as rosy on the offense.