SARASOTA -- The Reds have acquired Bronson Arroyo and cash from the Red Sox in exchange for Wily Mo Pena.
I'll have more shortly.
...Arroyo is 29, broke in with the Pirates, and has now been a regular starter in Boston for the past two years. Relevant stats:
| Year | IP | ERA | FIP | BABIP | K/9 | BB/9 | HR/9 |
| 2004 | 178.7 | 4.03 | 4.06 | 0.286 | 7.15 | 2.37 | 0.86 |
| 2005 | 205.3 | 4.51 | 4.48 | 0.278 | 4.38 | 2.37 | 0.96 |
Last year showed a big drop-off in his strikeout rates -- the second lowest rate of his career (major or minor leagues), the worst being his '01 season with the pirates (3.96). Typically, he has been up in the 6-7 k/9 range, so we can only hope he will return to that level this year. His walk rates have consistently been below league average, and his HR/9 rates are right about league average. Coming from Boston, I think we can expect roughly similar numbers this year. Perhaps fewer hits and a few more home runs allowed.
There had been rumors, at least over at RedsZone, that Matt Clement might also have been available. Needless to say, I'd much prefer to have had Clement, but this trade does help us. Arroyo fits in ahead of Claussen as the #2 starter on the team...more a condemnation of our rotation than an accolade of Arroyo, as I think of him as a prototypical #4 starter. Still, he's better than what we had, and is young enough to help us for a few years (not sure about his contract status).
I'd put the Reds' rotation now as Harang, Arroyo, Claussen, Williams, Milton. Paul Wilson will have to get lucky to get in the rotation when he returns from injury (either someone will have to explode or get hurt), but I think he could be a valuable guy in the bullpen.
For fun, here is baseball-reference's list of similar players through age 28:
- Mike Harkey (978)
- Kevin Foster (975)
- Chris Codiroli (974)
- Rodrigo Lopez (974)
- Sean Bergman (972)
- Art Ditmar (970)
- Ted Lilly (969)
- Brett Tomko (968)
- Chad Ogea (967)
- Scott Sanders (967)
I'll miss Wily Mo (wily mo wily mo), and I do hope he'll go on to become a super star. But he's basically an all-power, no-OBP guy; as many have said, he could be the next Sammy Sosa, or he could be the next Russell Branyon. And while he is inexpensive at this point in his career, he clearly had some trade value and hurts us less than we would have been hurt losing either Kearns or Dunn. Through age 23, here are the most similar hitters to Pena. Kind of a scary list:
- Jesse Barfield (976)
- Rocky Colavito (955)
- Pete Incaviglia (949)
- Bobby Bonds (947)
- Dave Kingman (946)
- Willie Montanez (946)
- Billy Conigliaro (944)
- Willie Horton (943)
- Harmon Killebrew (941) *
- Roger Maris (939)
Update: Apparently this move puts Dunn back in left field this year. He's a thoroughly average defender (despite his negative reputation), so it should work out well for us. Hatteberg is slated as our 1B. I have to admit that I'd probably rather see Dunn at 1B a bit more often, with Denorfia and Freel getting starts in the outfield. Freel's said to be a very good outfielder with good range, so I'd definitely like to see him out there a bit more often. Hatteberg seems to me to be another Aurilia...maybe more OBA (though not the last few years), less SLG.
I'm for the Arroyo trade - getting an average/average-plus pitcher for 3 years at 10.5 million is a steal this winter. WMP will be missed, but the lost offense is more than offset by the gain in pitching ...
ReplyDeleteAnd defense, IF they would play Denoria or Freel in left and stick Dunn at first. I disagree with you about Dunn's D - he's got very limited range, as would be expected for a big slugger, and his arm is overrated. I'm still trying to figure out fielding stats, but according to the Fielding Bible Dunn ranked 28th among LFs last year, costing the Reds 16 bases for the opposition versus an average LF. For comparison, Coco Crisp was first, preventing 26 bases (a 40 base improvement over Dunn). The Fielding Bible is a great read, BTW.
Ken
Hi Ken, thanks for the comment.
ReplyDeleteMy claim about Dunn's defense was based on Chris Dial's Zone Rating translations, which puts him at -2 runs/year. Given that the worst left fielders were at -20 or more runs/yr, this seemed good justification for the claim of average.
Seeing your comment, however, I looked up a few other sources and found they are generally more in agreement with the fielding bible:
* Baseball Prospectus rates Dunn at -10 runs over 124 games in left field (-17 in 149 in '04 and -6 in 93 games in '03).
* David Gassko (Hardball Times)'s Range puts Dunn at -7.4 runs/150 games, which was 20/24 for left fielders.
I don't think there's great consensus on which fielding statistics work best at this point (at least post-UZR), so the best thing to do is to go looking for consensus from multiple approaches on particular players. In this case, the data don't look good for Dunn in terms of range. So I learned something new. :)
For arm strength, however, the claim of average seems ok to me. John Walsh's new throwing statistics put Dunn as saving 0.1 runs/200 opportunities (~1 year) above average, which was 12th/26 players in left field.
I'm considering picking up the Fielding Bible. David Gassko's review of it indicated that some of what was in there was not new, and that its range estimates underperformed ZR and his own Range in some cases. Still, I'm seeing it cited a lot and will probably grab it for completeness (if nothing else). -j