Dog Days Thoughts

--With Rios now in Texas, the Sox have three major league average hitters in their lineup. And if you control a bit for BABIP, the Sox have two major league hitters: Adam Dunn and De Aza. Yikes.

--Adam Dunn is 13th in the majors in ISO (power) and his walk rate is 4th best.  Meanwhile his BABIP is up to .265, after a brutal first two months of bad luck, his BABIP is .367 the last 30 days—hey look, regression! And he’s hitting dingers. Basically he’s what you’d expect him to be. His wRC+ of 117 means he’s creating 17% more runs than the average hitter, that’s not great, but it’s good.  He’s really taken too much abuse.  Yes he strikes out too much, he’s a horrible defender and he can’t run. But Adam Dunn wasn’t signed by the Sox to do any of those things. He was brought to get on base and hit home runs; other than 2011, he’s done that. Dunn has value, the problem for the Sox is that he’s the best hitter on the team, and if Adam Dunn is your best hitter...

...Then Dayan Viciedo is your fifth best hitter (now fourth with Rios moving on).  This is a major problem as Viciedo isn’t a very good hitter and plays a position where you need him to be a good hitter. You might be able to live with Viciedo if you’ve got a great hitting second baseman and third baseman. But the Sox don’t (and haven’t). He’s got to go next year.

-- I was going to write nice things about Chris Sale, but he’s great and doesn’t need more praise.  So how about this, which is now my favorite state line of the year... John Danks ERA/FIP/xFIP in 2013:

ERA: 4.52

FIP: 5.13

xFIP: 3.94

Ummm, okay.  I have nothing to say other than Danks’ BABIP is .257 and his HR/FB is 18%. So he’s been lucky and unlucky. It’s pretty funny that it has completely washed out and his ERA is nearly smack in the middle of the two.

Danks year so far has been a disappointment; he's given the Sox innings but not a lot of quality innings. His strike out rate is down slightly from where it was in '09-'11, but I'm not going to worry about it too much. He's actually shown the best control of his career, walking the fewest number of hitters per 9. But Danks has been allowing too many fly balls, it's always been a bit of an issue but it's been worse this year, and they've turned into home runs at either an alarming (or unlucky) rate.

Looking a tad deeper into this, his fastball velocity is down slightly, about 1mph/1.5mph from last year when he was pitching through shoulder issues. That's the concern, he's now 2 or 3 ticks below where he was in 2010 and 2011. I think it's a tad too early to say that Danks might be closer to done than effective, but it's something to keep you eye on the last six or seven weeks of the season.

"You don't like it?" "No I don't like it..."

So I’ve now slept on the Peavy trade.  

And I still don’t like it.

I don’t hate it and maybe I’m overvaluing Peavy.  But the Cubs just traded essentially the same pitcher, arguably a tad better, for a nice collection of bats and arms. The White Sox didn’t get anything close* to the return the Cubs got for Garza, despite the fact that Garza’s a free agent in two months.

*I usually use a mix of Keith Law and Fangraphs rankings for prospects. Neither one had Garcia in the top 100 in baseball (Law had him #2 in the Tigers depleted system and Fangraphs had him #4). However, Baseball America had Garcia as their 74th rated prospect heading into this year.

Okay, let’s say I am overvaluing Peavy because of his injury history. Then why in the world a the White Sox going after a guy who looks too much like Viciedo—only without as much power (so far) and better speed. Yes, as the Fifth Feather already reported, Avisail Garcia is not Miggy Jr. Why?Miggy at age 22 was in his third major league season, and racking up 5.5 WAR and 146 wRC+ in the major leagues; Garcia at age 22 is bouncing between AAA and the majors racking up a -0.3 WAR and a 72 wRC+. This really says it all: “This year, Garcia owns the highest BABIP at the Triple-A level. He also owns one of the highest swing rates, and one of the lowest contact rates.”

I get it, the tools are there. If he learns to walk, he’s going to hit for more power and all of a sudden he may be a borderline All-Star. I get that’s the thinking. But there’s not much in the Sox track record that anyone can point to where the Sox turn these toolsy/free-swingers guys into average major leaguers let alone All-Stars (Vicideo, Mitchell, Walker, etc).  The last thing the Sox needs is another toolsy/free-swinging outfielder, they’ve got, now by my count, seven of them: Vicideo, Mitchell*, Walker, Thompson, Hawkins, Jacobs and now Garcia.

*I know, he’s no longer a prospect, but he needs to be included because the Sox are way too in love with these type of players.

The Sox have a system that is widely regarded as one of the worst in the game.  They need help pretty much everywhere. Hawkins is the only guy with All-Star potential but he’s 19 and has a ways to go (I’m excluding everyone drafted last month). Sanchez, yes young for AAA, hasn’t hit at all there this year. Thompson’s cut the strikeouts a bit, but hasn’t hit for as much power in AA. Walker probably isn’t going to make it. Those four guys were considered the top four positions players in the Sox system heading into the year.  Sure Garcia now slots in behind Hawkins, but the Sox already have a bunch of Garcia’s and the results haven’t been all that great.  Basically the last thing the Sox needed was another toolsy outfielder. But that’s what they got. I don’t get it.

As for the other three guys the Sox picked up... no one seems too crazy about Wendelken or Rondon.  Montas has a great arm but can’t find the plate.  Needless to say, I fully expect the Sox will turn him into a decent pitcher because that’s what the Sox do. For all the crap I just gave them about their inability to develop positions players; they are pretty damn good at turning pitchers into solid/good/great major leaguers (Santiago/Quintana/Sale).  But Montas seems to be destined for the bullpen... so lets fire up the 2016 rumor mill where Reed is traded and Montas moves into the closer role.

I was probably too high on Peavy and what he could bring back for the Sox. Obviously Garcia’s got talent and I fully expect him to get a good run in September.  But I would have liked to see the Sox get someone who has three tools which will grade out instead of another guy with a crazy high ceiling and extremely low floor who plays the outfield.

Other thoughts:

--Others disagree, but I don’t think the Sox had to trade Peavy.  They didn’t need the savings. And if the deal wasn’t there, it wasn’t there. They could easily have held onto him and traded him in the winter or gone into ‘14 with Sale/Peavy as your one—two and see how things play out.

--The major positive? It is starting to look like Viciedo won’t be the starting left fielder for the White Sox next year. What happens with Rios today will obviously affect the ‘14 line up, but if Rios stays, your outfield next year is probably Garcia-De Aza-Rios. And of course even if they deal Rios, they can sign a right fielder or roll the dice with Thompson.  However, the Sox will probably need a first base/DH next year once Konerko mercifully retires and I guess Viciedo could provide cover there.  I’m not crazy about that, but whatever. It’d be one year.

--I love this trade for the Tigers.  They’re trying to win a World Series in the next two, maybe three, years. And this deal makes them better this year and moving forward. Iglesias provides two things: 1) he can field 2) he provides cover if/when Peralta is suspended by MLB.  I think the Tigers BABIP problems are directly related to the fact that they have two of the worst defensive infielders in baseball and a shortstop whose glove is okay at best.  Now they’ve got really strong D at both second and short, and for their sake, will hopefully turn seeing eye singles into outs.  Iglesias is young too.  Two years ago Keith Law was calling him the best defensive shortstop he’s ever seen in the minors and I don’t think that’s changed much:

 

http://cdn.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/IglesiasPlay.gif.opt_.gif

Sure he can’t hit, but the Tigers have Miggy, Prince, Austin Jackson and everyone else to do that. I think they’re the favorites in the AL and probably the Majors with this trade (assuming Peralta sits for Iglesias).  Oh, and they only gave up a free swinging, BABIP inflated, not even top 100 prospect for him.

--I really like the deal for the Red Sox as they didn’t give up much for a really good starter when healthy.  If Peavy’s healthy for the next year and change, the Red Sox are going to get the best player in the deal.  He makes the rotation better. And his contract is completely reasonable.  It may appear they’re giving up on Iglesias early, but really they probably sold high and they’ve got one of the top five prospects in the game to eventually play short.  Iglesias was going to get moved this winter anyway.  It doesn’t appear any of the guys in the minors they sent to the Sox will hurt them in the long run.  

Viciedo to DL; Tekotte Called Up

The Sox placed Viciedo on the DL this morning with an oblique strain.  You’re not going to believe this, but he hurt it while (over)swinging at a pitch on Thursday.

Blake Tekotte was called up to replace Viciedo on the 25-man.  I don’t know much about Tekotte as the Sox got him over the winter from San Diego, but Keith Law sees him as a 4th outfielder and seems to like him.  Sickles said the same thing last year when he was in a loaded Padres system, but didn’t even crack the top-20 of an unloaded Sox system this year.  Tekotte hasn’t done much in two very short cups of coffee in San Diego but he does appear to have a little speed and I read rumors of a decent glove.

Viciedo started hitting the ball a bit last week, but he’s been bad so far this year.  This isn’t that surprising as Viciedo was probably the worst left fielder in the majors last year, and things haven’t changed much this year.  No walk, no glove, can’t hit righties who play left field are not only easy to replace, they’re totally expendable.  Viciedo is expendable save for the 5 or 6 at bats he gets each week against a lefty.

I’m guessing that Tekotte and Danks will split the at bats, however they’re both lefties so I’m not sure how Robin will manage that. Danks is starting today for what it's worth.

This isn’t that big of a loss for the Sox, you could even say it’s a gain if Danks and Tekotte hunt down every fly ball hit to left.  But Danks can’t hit and Tekotte is unproven in the majors.  Neither guy has Viciedo’s power, but the Sox aren’t reliant on Dylan’s power either.  I can’t see this costing the Sox much of anything as both Danks and Tekotte probably save the two runs in the outfield that Viciedo would have created with his bat.

If you’re going to have injuries, make sure they’re your not very good players so you can easily replace them.  So far, so good for the Sox on that note.