The Twins are playing the waiting game with Cuddyer. Is it worth it?

Since the Twins locked up Jamey Carroll, Ryan Doumit and Matt Capps, their interest in the free agent market is at a standstill. That logjam is none other than Michael Cuddyer.

The Twins reportedly have an offer on the table for the veteran, one that is worth three years and $24 million, and are waiting for a decision.

The waiting game on Cuddyer is contingent on him exploring his option on the free agent market. In some ways that market has dried up but there are some suitors that could come into play quickly.

The Red Sox have entertained the thought but have stated their focus is on pitching not offense at the moment. Although the once aggressive Philadelphia Phillies have landed Ty Wigginton and Laynce Nix and recanted their interest, the Colorado Rockies, who have been shucking payroll left and right this offseason, are considering placing a three-year offer in front of Cuddyer’s agent. Meanwhile, the now Pujols-less St. Louis Cardinals have a ton of money to spend and could very well be in the market for a corner outfielder/first baseman-type. Similarly, the Baltimore Orioles, just a hop-skip-and-jump from his hometown, discussed the idea of signing him but haven’t been active.

Despite all of that interest from other teams, according to Lindsay Guentzel, word from Cuddyer’s camp is that he would like to stay in Minnesota and will do so if the offer was for $2 million more or a fourth year was added.

As it stands, the value of the contract – roughly $8 million per season – is a reasonable expectation to meet according to Fangraphs.com’s Value system. Outside of his 2010 and injury-filled 2008 seasons, Cuddyer has exceeded the $10 million mark dating back to 2006.  If the bidding starting to increase above the $10 million annual rate, the likelihood of being able to match that with his production decreases:

Michael Cuddyer’s Value
Year	Value
2006	$11.2
2007	$10.1
2008	$0.0
2009	$12.8
2010	$3.3
2011	$14.0

The value system takes in account Wins Above Replacement (or WAR), which factors in defense using Ultimate Zone Rating and weighted Runs Above Replacement, and research has shown that in order to purchase one WAR on the market, it will cost approximately $4.5 million. So, in Cuddyer’s case, his 2011 season was measured at 3.1 WAR (or a three-win player) which works out to $14 million.  

As decent as his season was last year, it is even likelier that if he didn’t receive a Jeremy Guthrie fastball to the wrist, he would have had an even better 2011 season.

Admittedly, it was noble of him to gut it out through the sore wrist but while the rest of the opening day lineup was drinking Tahitian Treat in the whirlpool, Cuddyer’s on-field performance suffered. Post-wrist injury - from August 22^nd until the end of the season - Cuddyer manned up for 115 plate appearances, hitting .241/.287/.361 with just eight extra base hits including two home runs. It was a good example to set, however the balky back and the wrist were an obvious substantial power drain. In comparison, a healthy Cuddy was on pace to put up some very big numbers, hitting .295/.360/.485 with 18 home runs through his first 469 plate appearances. To put that in perspective, he went from hitting a home run once every 26 plate appearances to once every 57.

People harp on his defensive play – yes, he’s no speedster in the outfield – but this year he showed a much improved ability to patrol right field for the Twins.

Consider this: In 2010, when he had his knee issues, Cuddyer managed to get to 102 of the 116 plays within a standard right fielder’s zone (a .879 revised zone rating). Additionally, he was able to track down 15 more outs that were not in the standard right fielder’s zone. This amounted to a -20.6 ultimate zone rating – the third-lowest mark among right fielders with a minimum of 500 defensive innings. Meanwhile, he showed an impressive turnaround in 2011. This past year, working 639 innings in right Cuddyer was able to making plays on 101 of the 108 balls in his zone which led to a revised zoning rating of .935 (a career best for him). On top of that he nabbed an extra 41 plays on out of zone plays leading to an ultimate zone rating of 0.1. It is hard to gauge any defensive metrics on one year samplings but that is still an impressive improvement - particularly in his ability to get to out-of-zone plays. Did a healthy knee provide him with better wheels to chase down those extra plays? Or was it simply being position well by the coaching staff?

If he is able to sustain the 2011 level of defense next year – which at his age it is certainly not a given - he would not be such a liability in the field. Furthermore, with Justin Morneau’s ability to play first base in question, Cuddyer gives the Twins a player who has manned first in recent history (Ryan Doumit has played all of 251 innings at first and just 43 since 2006).

One area of the game in which he excels is his ownership over left-handed pitching. In the past two seasons, Cuddyer has posted a .929 OPS against southpaws – the third-highest among remaining free agents – and the Twins currently lack right-handed depth on the roster of that caliber. On the other hand, while that is considerable production, not far behind Cuddyer on that list are free agents Jonny Gomes (.859 OPS), Josh Willingham (.827) and Kelly Shoppach (.804). Those players may be able to be signed at a lower cost and replace Cuddyer’s output against lefties in the lineup but all of them have various flaws as well.

Then there are the numerous “intangibles” that Cuddyer displays which is highly valued.

Just by the hardware he’s brought home recently you can tell how well he is viewed by the organization. He’s won the Twins’ Bob Allison Leadership Award the past three year – bestowed upon the Twins player who best exemplifies determination, hustle, tenacity, competitive spirit and leadership both on and off the field. The past two years he’s won the Mike Augustin Award for the player who fosters a healthy relationship with the media.

Cuddyer oozes charisma all over everything, makes motivational t-shirts for the club, fields the tough post-game questions and apparently intervenes when Kevin Slowey was throwing his verbal feces at the beat writers (or something like that). He is to clubhouse demeanor as to one of thoseGrey’s Anatomy doctors are to bedside manner (full disclosure: I’ve never seen Grey’s Anatomy) yet odds are that the team would have lost 99 games last year with or without Cuddyer on the roster.

Still, it’s hard to write any of that off as meaningless. Sure, it doesn’t show up in his WAR or in the win column but that doesn’t mean that leadership is valueless. For a team like the Twins, who have plenty of young players taxiing up and down to the majors all the time, what does a clubhouse role model like Cuddyer provide? It is entirely possible that his example of hustle and tenacity rub off over time on the likes of Trevor Plouffe, Rene Tosoni or Joe Benson. It is very difficult to measure an effect like that analytically (if there is an effect at all) and assign a dollar value. At the same time, if you develop your organization well, then you should have various players able to step into that clubhouse leader role. After all, when Torii Hunter left, that created a void for Michael Cuddyer to fill. If Cuddyer leaves, it is definitely possible that someone else will take his place.

Cuddyer turns 33 in March, which means that he is a candidate for skill deterioration throughout the duration of the contract and the chances of injuries increases as well. If the Twins are serious about retaining him, they will also forfeit not one but two draft picks in 2012. Factoring this in, it should be a difficult decision to make, particularly if his asking price grows. The three-year, $24 million offer is completely reasonable but if other teams start driving that figure northward, it behooves the organization to shake hands, thank him for his contributions and move on to plan B. 

Twins bring back Matt Capps to close in 2012

When it was announced that the Minnesota Twins had a deal in place to bring back closer Matt Capps, the move has been met with streams of vitriol for the obvious reasons.

The first and foremost reason was that Capps’s 2011 season was a big bag of flaming poo. Elevated back into the closer’s role after Joe Nathan returned prematurely from Tommy John surgery, Capps struggled to slam the down shut. He blew nine saves – second-highest in baseball last year – and his 63% save conversion rate was the lowest among closers with 20 opportunities or more. Adding to the problem was that Capps’s strikeout numbers, already a fairly low career rate for a closer, took a nosedive, declining from 20% to 12% as hitters stopped missing on his offerings altogether.

From June 28th to August 18th, his season bottomed out. In 24 outings in that span, Capps managed to convert just four saves while blowing three more. He allowed 12 runs in 18.2 innings and posted a gawdawful 3-to-7 strikeouts-to-walk ratio. Even though it was downplayed in-season and the coaching staff talked about a “mechanical problem”, I sourced it to an injury problem based on his arm action. It was later in the year that he admitted to having a “dead arm” and it was revealed more recently that his forearm was strained.

To make matter worse, the Twins, by the grace of the restructured collective bargaining agreement, were given a free draft pick for Matt Capps. Instead of being a Type A free agent who the Twins would have had no interest in extending arbitration to thereby unable to collect on any potential draft picks, the Lords of the Realm granted Capps amnesty from Type A status – giving the Twins a supplemental round pick (between the first and second rounds) – if another team signed him.

For teams interested in keeping their internal pipeline of prospects flowing, this was an ideal situation. It is this type of decision-making that keeps the Tampa Bay Rays in continual contention while keeping their overall budget low. So, the Twins would land another prospect and could redirect that money they would have spent retaining Capps on another similar or better relief arm.

Perhaps it was because they believe that they wanted to curb their investment in this year’s draft (they do have the number two pick as well as up to three more supplemental picks if Michael Cuddyer and Jason Kubel sign elsewhere). Perhaps it was because they looked at this year’s draft class and determined – like Keith Law noted – it will be weaker than the previous drafts.  Or perhaps they just loved the idea of the guy who “takes the ball everyday” despite being hurt in 2011 and genuinely believe he is poised for a rebound year. Whatever the reason, the Twins decided to turn down the free draft pick that fell into their laps.

The idea of declining free money is hard to fathom for this franchise, and that is the hardest pill to swallow when it comes to analyzing this deal, but all else being equal, I don’t hate it.

While holding the belief that the closer’s role is often overvalued and overpaid on the free market, I had encouraged the Twins to holster their search for one, citing the methods of the aforementioned Rays who have made fiscally prudent decisions by signing an arm like Kyle Farnsworth – a guy who was written off as unable to handle high pressure situations by Baseball Prospectus – only to thrive as a closer for Tampa.  There are plenty of arms on the market that fit the same profile as Farnsworth and likely would have been obtained at a similar pay grade (one-year, $2.6M). In many respects, Matt Capps also fits in that group. Sure, he does have nearly the impressive strikeout pedigree even when healthy as a Farnsworth but he throws strikes, limits base-runners and could be signed at a reduced rate coming off the bad season. The $4.75M is twice as much as what the Rays paid Farnsworth but it isn’t an outrageous amount to hand to Capps (unlike the $7M they burnt on his last year) and, according to Fangraphs.com’s valuation system, he’s been able to come very close or match that value in three of his last five seasons.  

The Twins believe that Capps will have a bounce-back year and that is a completely reasonable expectation.

One of the reasons his strikeout rate plummeted so greatly was undoubtedly due to his forearm pain. In 2010 his biggest strikeout pitch was his slider as 20 percent of plate appearances were strikeouts on that pitch. Additionally, hitters swung chased after 39 percent of sliders thrown out of the strike zone. This past season, just 7 percent of plate appearances ended on a strikeout from his slider and opponents chased just 29 percent percent of all out-of-zone sliders. Also worth noting is that his slider’s groundball rate dropped from 44 percent in ’10 to 34 percent in ’11.

Matt Capps’s Slider (2010-2011)
	K%	Chase%	Groundball%
MLB avg	29%	33%	46%
2011	7%	29%	34%
2010	20%	39%	44%

According to Pitch F/X data, Capps’s 2011 slider did not demonstrate nearly the same amount of run and drop it did 2010. Also, velocity-wise he was throwing it nearly two miles an hour harder this past year as well:

What you see here is that whereas a majority of Capps’s sliders had a spin angle between 60 and 120 degrees in 2010, this last year a more substantial portion of his slide pieces fell between 120-to -180 degrees – a range closer to that of a fastball. So in 2011 his main secondary offering now looked more like his fastball and hitters were able to either hold up their swing or punish the pitch.

Given his forearm injury, it is easy to see why he struggled with his slider. The mechanics of the slider require a fairly strong wrist/forearm combination to execute and with a weak link in the chain, the results often are bad. So, with a healthy forearm, I would anticipate a revival of sorts for this pitch and with it, an increase in his strikeout count. Still, I can’t say with the utmost confidence that Capps will be 100% throughout the 2012 season. As I outlined last year, his arm action – one in which he cocks his elbow above shoulder level – has been identified by biomechanics as an attribute that leads to arm injuries and one that could have incited the forearm pain. Because of this delivery, it seems there would always be the possibility of another flare up.   

Truthfully, I don’t think this move is as egregious as the crowd would like people to believe. Yes, the draft pick decision was a wasteful maneuver but given both the surplus of picks in the first and supplemental round as well as the fact that the organization likely did not count on even having the Capps pick until after the CBA was renewed, declining one is not the end of the world nor the mark of a bad front office. In terms of the contract, the one-year deal for $4.75M isn’t completely out of line. And, as I mentioned before, Capps has managed to produce at that value level in the past and that is a substantial savings for the cost of a free market “experienced closer”.

Rumors swirl as winter meetings begin

The GM Winter Meetings starts today in Dallas and the event holds plenty of promise for adding new faces to the roster - including potentially finding a starting pitcher to complete the rotation.

The Twins were aggressive with the left-handed Chris Capuano but ultimately lost out to the Los Angeles Dodgers when the veteran decided to sign for a two-year, $10 million to stay in the National League last week. Nevertheless, reports surfaced that the team has been connected to free agents Jeff Francis and Edwin Jackson.

Jackson is a fairly young (28), right-handed power arm (averages 94.5 miles per hour on his fastball) who has been a 3-wins above replacement the previous two seasons and is now poised to command a multi-year deal which we estimated to be in the ballpark of three years at $11 million per year.  Francis, on the other hand, is a slightly older (31 in 2012), left-handed soft-tosser (managed to average just 84.7 miles per hour on his “heater”) who has averaging 2-wins above replacement the past two years and is fortunate if he gets offered employment for one year.

The likes of Jeff Francis and Edwin Jackson couldn’t be any further away from each other on the pitcher spectrum. Jackson is a hard-throwing fastball/slider guy while Francis is a control-oriented, slow-slower-and-slowest pitcher. Having interest in the pair is like being at the bar and trying to decide between a shot of bourbon or a wine cooler. Yet, when you peeled back some of the data, you can see that these two have a lot of common ground.

The pairs’ fastballs, with an almost ten mile per hour discrepancy between them, could not elicit a different response. Some people have actually attempt to compare Edwin Jackson to the legendary Bob Gibson, Jeff Francis’s fastball reminds people of Debbie Gibson. Still, even with the difference it is amazing that they both wound up with similar results on the pitch:

Comparing Fastball Results (2011)
	Velocity	%Pitches	Miss%	Well-Hit Avg	Ground Ball%
Edwin Jackson	94.5	55%	10%	.295	44%
Jeff Francis	84.7	53%	11%	.278	48%
MLB Avg	92.0	62%	15%	.248	44%

(via Inside Edge)

For the most part, both of the pitchers’ fastballs were below average in all categories. Jackson clearly had an advantage in the velocity department as his fastball held the fifth-highest velocity on average in 2010. Meanwhile Francis had the second slowest fastball in baseball, trailing the Nationals’ Livan Hernandez for that honor. In spite of having the livelier fastball, it was Francis who was able to get more batters to miss. Likewise, it was Francis’s ground ball tendencies that put him slightly better than the norm and thus likely caused his well-hit average to be twenty points lower in that category than Jackson.

Jackson, blessed numbers that set radar gun-enthusiasts hearts aflutter, typically just hurls his fastball to the fat part of the zone. He is a “here-hit-this” type of pitcher. As it turns out, opponents do hit it. Conversely, not afforded the same genetics, Francis is forced to work the outer-half and just off the plate in attempt to coerce the softer contact.

What separates the two pitchers is their secondary offerings. Jackson is reliant on his slider while Francis works in a changeup. Jackson’s slider has been able to generate a high percentage of swing-and-misses (34% miss percentage). Francis favors the changeup which nets him a swing-and-miss of 23% but a high rate of grounders. It is because of this that Jackson has been able to strikeout 17.2% of hitters faced while Francis has been only able to whiff 11.3%.

But strikeouts don’t tell the entire story. Sure, they are a great predictor of future success but it does not paint a picture of the complete pitcher.

In 2011, both Jackson and Francis both shared a WHIP of 1.44 - meaning they averaged roughly the same amount of base-runners over the season. Jackson had struggled with his control over his career whereas Francis has actually improved his since his injury, cutting down his walks in the past two years. Both give up a hefty number of hits. Because of his down-the-middle approach, Jackson had a much higher line drive rate as hitters were able to square up more. Francis’s attempts to incite contact indubitably led to base hits. In the end, Jackson has been roughly one win above replacement better than Francis (or he provided his team with $5 million in more “value”) yet he will be able to land a deal worth three times as much as Francis in both years and dollars.

Current Free Agent SP WAR (2011)
Name	WAR
C.J. Wilson	5.9
Edwin Jackson	3.8
Mark Buehrle	3.4
Javier Vazquez	3.2
Bartolo Colon	2.9
Jeff Francis	2.6
Roy Oswalt	2.5
Hiroki Kuroda	2.4
Erik Bedard	2.4
Paul Maholm	2.1

Presented with the option between the two, odds are that the vast majority of fans would prefer Jackson over Francis eight days a week (I’m certain a quick scroll through the comments section will validate this). The reality is that likelihood of landing Jackson, who is one of the top free agents on the market due to a small pool of starting pitchers and a Scott Boras client, is minimal. As mentioned above, he stands to collect a decent paycheck for the next few years which the Twins budget does not appear able to accommodate. And, given the interworking of his arsenal, I would say that he stands to be overpaid as well.

If you are looking at it from a purely investment standpoint, for an organization that has stated it has a $100 million payroll budget, bringing in Francis would make more sense – giving the team flexibility to address other areas like the bullpen or an outfielder. Guys like Mark Buehrle and Edwin Jackson are poised to make northwards of $10 million next year and will provide a small uptick in value over Francis who will likely make south of $5 million.

Signing Francis would not be a sexy acquisition in any shape or form. It would be settling. He has proven capable enough to throw over 180 innings and, even with an unimpressive repertoire, he has shown that he can almost match Jackson’s output. With a better defense and a more supportive lineup, Francis has the potential to post a better season in 2012 than in 2011 – at a reasonable price.

Twins should put their closer search on hold

In efforts to rekindle the passion that has subsided after a disappointing summer, the Twins hosted yet another one of their fan forums. This time, it was general manager Terry Ryan’s turn to attempt to talk the disgruntled down from their ledge.

Howard Sinker listened in on the conference call, one that allowed season ticketholders to interact with the man in charge of the team’s roster construction, and Sinker relayed to his non-season ticketholding twitter followers the talking points in 140-characters or less. In outlining his offseason plans, Ryan said that two of the immediate priorities were finding a closer as well as another starting pitcher.

Ryan has made several mentions of his plans when it comes to addressing the closer’s role. He told listeners on 1500 ESPN that Glen Perkins was not going to inherit the role and that he is looking for an “experienced closer.”  Last night, Ryan commented that the Twins are currently targeting pitchers outside of the organization, mentioning that that person could come in the form of a free agent or possibly through a trade.

The question is, why are the Twins making finding a closer such a high priority?

It’s easy to understand from the team’s perspective. Last year the Twins had 52 save opportunities and the back of the bullpen managed to hold on to just 62% of those. That was the lowest save conversion rate for the franchise since the 1997 season team converted on just 61% of their save chances.

This was clearly a black-eye for the organization that had prided itself on securing games for most of the century. After all, since 2002, they have recorded more saves than Billy Graham.

But here’s the thing: those 52 save opportunities were also tied with the Boston Red Sox for fourth fewest in baseball. Boston’s lack of save opportunities only stems from having baseball’s most potent offense which averaged 5.4 runs per game. The Twins, unlike their Red Sox counterparts, were not afforded the same luxury of running away with ballgames considering they average the second fewest runs per game in the American League (3.82 runs per game) and the fifth-lowest in all of baseball.

And therein lies the problem.

The front office is seemingly trying to stop the bleeding where the team blew a handful of save opportunities when the real problem is that the majority of their games played did not require a closer because the bats were flaccid or the starting rotation failed to keep the game within reach (they allowed 4.96 runs per game, second-most in baseball) or both. Focusing on a closer now would be like putting a tourniquet on a paper cut on one leg while the other leg is lopped off at the knee and still hemorrhaging blood everywhere.

Yes, the anticipated return of Denard Span, Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer along with the addition of Ryan Doumit should assist in a modest uptick in offensive production. Yes, the acquisition of Jamey Carroll should hopefully fortify the middle infield and support the pitching staff. And perhaps the future addition of someone like Chris Capuano, who the Twins have expressed interest in, will help solidify the rotation as Francisco Liriano, Scott Baker and Nick Blackburn all regain their health. Still, is all of that enough to raise the runs scored and shave off the pitching staff’s runs allowed – at least to the point where you may be creating more save opportunities?

To me, that is not enough to do so. As Joe Christensen wrote about earlier this week, the team is growing perilously close to that $100 million mark that was estimated to be the 2012 budget capacity. At an approximate $87.7 million now, sinking $7 million or more for the going rate of an “experienced closer” would leave the team front office with $6 million or less to address the other outstanding issues (starting pitcher, outfielder, bullpen depth, etc).

Building a strong bullpen is one thing; doing so by throwing money at a closer with an extensive resume is the wrong way. Rather than sink money into an experience closer, the Twins should be taking a cue from the Tampa Bay Rays, who have been very successful at compiling a relief staff on a shoestring budget. They coaxed some of the best work out of retreads in Troy Percival and Kyle Farnsworth while landing Rafael Soriano from Atlanta in a severely lopsided trade in their favor.

Ultimately, the Twins will need someone to close but they do not need to land a budget-buster to do so. Instead of trying to reel in the big closer fish, the Twins should be targeting the likes of Takashi Saito, who pitched well in the set-up role for the Brewers after closing for the Dodgers from 2006-2008. Or taking a look Joel Zumaya who is scheduled to pitch for scouts in mid-December and find out if he can be this year’s Joaquin Benoit, a recovering power arm in need of a one-year deal. Heck, find out if the Rangers will part with Koji Uehara, who had a brief stint as a closer in Baltimore and has the highest K/BB ratio (10.00) among relievers since 2009 as well as the second highest strikeout percentage (33.6%), now that Texas has signed Joe Nathan.

Instead of allocating a high percentage of what’s left of the 2012 budget on a player whose contributions may be minimal, the Twins should rededicate that funding towards the starting rotation, grabbing an outfielder and buttressing the rest of the bullpen while spending what is leftover on a closer.

In the end, if you don’t have save opportunities, what good is a closer anyway?

******

DiamondCentric has a special deal for the holidays - $15 for all Game Six, Nothing Runs Like Revere and The Killer shirts. Get yours for the baseball fan in your life!