White Sox trade Jason Frasor

The White Sox traded Jason Frasor to the Blue Jays for Myles Jaye and Daniel Webb.

Frasor will make 3.75 million in 2012, and had a 1 WAR in 2011. Over the last 3 years, he has a WAR average of 1.13, which would be a WASP of 3319, slightly above the Halladay Standard. He had a -1.03 PE (-.54 Adjusted PE) in 2011, with a career PE of -.978 (-.975 Adjusted PE). His FIP - was 100, which is about league average in 2011. SIERA liked him quite a bit more, at a 3.56, but for just the second time in his career, he gave up more flyballs than groundballs. This could explain why his BABIP was slightly higher than usual (.304 against a .288). He also gave up the most HR/9IP since 2006, a further sign of some kind of regression. It is worth noting, however, that he pitched well if the BlueJays in the first half, but pitched poorly (a 0 WAR) with the White Sox after being traded at the deadline. For whatever its worth, the Bill James projections have him at a 3.69 FIP for 2012.

Jaye has spent 1 short season in rookie ball, making 9 starts in 13 appearances after being drafted in the 17th round. There he had a -1.63 PE, had a decent walk rate but gave up 1.2 HR/9IP.

Daniel Webb has only pitched in A-ball, and has pitched mostly as a starter. He has been pretty bad, with a PE of 3.37. He has kept the ball in the ballpark and hasn't walked too many batters, but still has a BAA of over .280, despite having a reasonable BABIP. He was a hitter in college at Illinois, and had a .903 OPS, which would translate to a .653 OPS in the MLB according to our college metric. So it seems it was the right choice to change him to a pitcher, but it is not like that experiment is going real well either.

So the White Sox get two pretty inconsequential minor leaguers without too much promise (Jaye is certainly better than Webb though), while the Blue Jays get a slightly overpaid apparently regressing reliever. I guess the White Sox have a small advantage in this trade because they cut payroll, but I don't like this trade for either team really (although if Frasor returns to form, it could be advantage Blue Jays). 

Grading the Carlos Quentin trade

The WhiteSox traded Carlos Quentin to the Padres for pitchers Simon Castro and Pedro Hernandez.

Quentin had a 3.2 WAR in 2011, but had an even 0 WAR over 2009-2010. The difference was his defense, as he had a 2.4 O-WAR in both 2010 and 2011. However, his D-WAR was -2.8 in 2009-2010, but .8 in 2011. He simply played much better in the field in 2011, with a horrible .959 fielding percentage in 2010, but a .994 fielding percentage in 2011. However, his range factor stayed about the same, and it is well below average. His career D-WAR is -.7, and he should still be considered a below average fielder. Offensively, Quentin has a .346 OBP, 116 OPS +, and 1.874 O4S. He has pretty monster power, with a .238 ISO, and a good Secondary Average of .344. In the end he is a pretty good offensive player, with 5.8 runs created per game and a .581 Offensive Winning Percentage. He homers 5% percent of the time, about double the average player, and is an above average walker and extra base hitter. However, due to a poor Pit/PA, he has a PPS that is not very good at 86.98.

Castro spent 2011 split between AAA and AA. His 8 career AAA starts in the PCL have been extremely poor, but at 36 innings, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to judge him by that alone. As a starter n AA, 39 starts, he has a PE of -.343, which translates to about a 3.23 PE in the Majors. This of course would be horrible, so Castro can't be expected to contribute in 2012. He could, of course, improve and be part of the future, but there isn't a lot to suggest he will, and he doesn't offer any kind of immediate impact. He does keep the ball in the ballpark and has a good K/BB ratio.

Hernandez has just 4 AAA starts, and he struggled there as well, his 8 AA starts were better, but not a big enough sample size. Overall in his minor league career, he has split between both a starter and a reliever. In that time he has a PE of -.55, nothing impressive. However, he has had a FIP lower than his ERA in every stop he has made. Therefore, it makes some sense to cut him some slack and adjust his PE to about -.9. This probably projects to about a 2.4 PE, which isn't good as a starter or a reliever. He doesn't hardly walk anyone, and doesn't give up very many homers, so there is always that for the future, but it doesn't seem like Hernandez will have a 2012 impact.

Of course, the WhiteSox are in rebuilding mode, so as it is quite obvious the Padres win the trade for 2012, that really doesn't matter to Kenny Williams. With that said, I think that you would want to get a little bit more for the type of player Quentin is. There is the injury and defensive concerns with Quentin, but the Padres definitely need the bat.

Free Agent Watch: Freddy Garcia

Made just 1.5 million with the Yankees last season, and at a 3.4 WAR, deserved a 10.2 million dollar deal. Shouldn't be completely surprising, registered a 2.1 WAR in 2010, making just a million dollars with the White Sox. He clearly deserved at least 6 million for that performance. That the White Sox were willing to let Garcia go in free agency for 1.5 million raises some serious questions about the White Sox front office. So are there any indications that Garcia can (or cannot) repeat his performance? Some metrics aren't all that impressive, such as PE (1.7) and TR (8.93). This would suggest that Garcia is either overrated, lucky, or due for a bad season. His FIP was over .5 higher than his ERA, and he hasn't thrown 200 innings since 2006. There should also be some concern that 2011 was pretty fluky based on that he hadn't had an ERA lower than his 2011 ERA since 2001. The counter argument would be that his FIP was 3.35 in 2009, he just didn't have anything behind him. He is 35, and tons of pitchers have pitched very well after that, and he doesn't rely on flamethrowing stuff. I would not hesitate to sign him to a 2 year $4 million deal. I wouldn't bank on him being worth $10 million next year, but there really isn't much reason to believe he can't go out there and pitch very effectively. I just think it will be hard to go under the radar in the market again, especially after doing what he did in New York. However, I doubt he will be overpaid, everyone will think it is a fluke, and a low budget team (if the Yankees really lose their brains and don't resign him) could swoop in and get a very nice year or two from him.

The Nick Swisher Trade

Before the 2008 season, Mr. Moneyball himself sent Nick Swisher to the Chicago White Sox for Ryan Sweeney, Gio Gonzalez, and Fautino De Los Santos. Swisher spent a grand total of 1 year with the White Sox (he currently plays for the Yankees) and had just a .332 OBP with 24 bombs and 69 rbis, with a WAR of -.8 (he made 3.6 million that year). After the season, he was dealt to the Yankees (along with Kanekoa Texeira) for Wilson Betemit, Jeff Marquez, and Jhonny Nunez. Texeira never pitched in the big leagues for the Yankees (although he has appeared in games for the Mariners and Royals) so we will throw him out. Betemit had just 1 terrible year with the Sox, with a WAR of -.4 with a salary of 1.3 million. In Nunez and Marquez's short time with the Sox (neither are in the organization anymore) they each registered a -.1 WAR (because neither of their salaries were disclosed, we will assume it was the minimum $400,000, and we will do this again later on Santos). The four players drew $5,700,000 from the White Sox and posted a combined -1.4 WAR, giving them a combined 19380 WAR and Salary Per. The Athletics story looks much happier. Fautino De La Santos made his major league debut this year and has pitched pretty well with a 3.54 ERA and a .2 WAR (his salary is not released so we will assume $400,000). Since joining the A's in 08, Sweeney has posted a WAR of 6.7 (further salt in the wound, his WAR was negative as a member of the White Sox) and has received $2,625,000 in salary in that time. Gio Gonzalez has racked up a 6 WAR while collecting $1,635,000 from the Athletics. This gives the 3 a total of 12.9 WAR (meaning that those 3 guys alone have won 13 games for the Athletics, while the White Sox players lost games for the team). Adding their salary together and dividing it by their WAR gives them an incredible 361 WASP (they have a value similar to MVP candidate Jacoby Ellsbury). Both in overall performance and value, this was an extremely lopsided trade towards the A's. I guess there is a reason they wrote a book and made a movie about Billy Beane