Good Question

by R.J. Anderson on Feb 6, 2009 12:00 PM EST

My FanGraphs colleague Marc Hulet is doing a series on Baseball Analysts where he looks at teams from 10 years ago (1999), here's what he said about the '99 (Devil) Rays:

The Tampa Bay Rays | 69-93 (Fifth)

The Rays club has arguably come further than any other organization in 10 years. The 1999 season was just the second season in the brief history of the club. The organization received 34 home runs out of Jose Canseco and 32 bombs from Fred McGriff. Hall of Fame third baseman Wade Boggs played his final MLB season and finished the year with a .301 batting average and a .328 career average. Closer Roberto Hernandez led the club with a salary of $6.1 million (Why does an expansion team need a top-tiered closer?). He did earn his money, though, by saving 43 games. Wilson Alvarez led the club in wins with nine. Bobby Witt threw a team-leading 180.1 innings and managed a record of 7-15. Thirty-five-year-old rookie Jim Morris made headlines by appearing in his first Major League game.

Underline is mine.

Think about it, you're the GM of a new franchise, you know three things for sure:

1. You're not going to win in year one, probably not in year two, and maybe in year three. That's assuming you're a really good GM.

2. Closers are overpriced and often overvalued.

3. Closers are only useful to good teams and teams who can build a closer then trade him for prospects.

The Rays sorta dealt Hernandez for prospects -- well, Ben Grieve -- but that came three years after they signed him and after paying him ~17 million.* I'm going to guess the Rays knew #3, and kinda figured #2 out -- they would only slightly overpay Danys Baez, he would earn ~5.6 mil for ~3.7 mil worth of performance. Which means they didn't know or -- more likely -- didn't believe they would be poor in the immediate and near future.

So, that's why an expansion team needs a top of the line closer; when they don't realize they're an expansion team.

They also gave up Cory Lidle, who was cheap and league average. Of course, if Grieve doesn't lose all traces of power after donning a Rays uni, the deal probably doesn't look too bad, but that's beyond the original point: the Rays overpaid for something they didn't need just to fit in with the rest of baseball.

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RIP Cory Lidle

I want Baldelli to be healthy enough to play in 150 games, I just hope he sucks. Like Greg Vaughn suck.

by SeanDubbs on Feb 6, 2009 1:15 PM EST reply actions

Exactly,

although since you mentioned it I will say I loved the Grieve trade at the time. (I did wonder why they had to part with Lidle to make it happen. Seemed to me another example of them squandering resources with little notion of their true value, but I still thought the acquisition of Grieve very smart.)

I suppose it is possible that better scouting would have recognized his impending decline. But I certainly did not foresee it, and it seemed to me a young, patient, power hitting outfielder was exactly what they needed, especially since it only cost a closer who had little real value to the Devil Rays except in a trade.

I know you are not saying it, but I always thought that later criticisms of that deal were unfair. At the time it was made it was very smart, unless of course there was reason to doubt Grieve’s continuing productivity, which was not clear at the time as far as I can tell.

by bobr on Feb 6, 2009 6:33 PM EST reply actions

I tend to judge trades based on what we knew at the time.

Which is why it’s hard to call the Grieve deal a failure unless, as you said, something suggested he was prone to an early collapse.

by R.J. Anderson on Feb 6, 2009 6:39 PM EST up reply actions

One of the better 1998-2005 transactions

Grieve wOBA:
2001: .342
2002: .346
2003: .329

Yeah, he was not as good as the preceding A’s years (some said recurring thumb problems dampened his power) and 2003 was a thumb infection, Lou ranting disaster which ended early with the blood clot / rib removal surgery, but considering the circumstances (mid-20’s bat with three year track record of success for a 36-year-old overpaid closer still owed over $12 mil. for two years), he wasn’t a bad acquisition and even in that disastrous 2003 season, Grieve was productive until mid-June.

The Royals really got hosed on that trade.

by RATW on Feb 7, 2009 2:24 PM EST reply actions