Pelfrey's Trade Value

[drivlikejehu]

 

Luck can be a persistent quality over a short time frame. I don't even see how this is debatable. The longer you stretch the timeline, the less likely it is that a player will get lucky (ie. have a favorable outcome to events he did not control) but in the short or mid-term, it can very much be persistent. The same way you can flip a coin 20 times and get 19 heads, you can get a player who routinely "beats the odds" and remains lucky over a stretch of time.
 
Danny Santana maintained a .405 BABIP over 101 games last season. He had a .408/.400 BABIP split in the first and second halves of the season. In no month did his BABIP drop below .342. Did those things not happen? Given that you think luck cannot persist, you seem to believe that they did not.

 

I was one of the loudest people about Santana's possible regression but while he was out there performing, I certainly wasn't going to demote him just because he wasn't achieving a good result through my preferred methodology.

 

You are reasoning with the benefit of hindsight. 

 

The coin flips are a good example. Let's say I flip 10 heads in a row. Then I flip heads again. Was that 11th flip a reflection of persistent luck? In other words, when I flipped for the 11th time, were the odds of getting heads greater than 50/50, because I was on a lucky streak? 

 

Luck is only persistent if it actually changes what you expect to happen in the future. For Pelfrey's next start, what pitcher do you view him as? A guy who is a #1 starter? A #3-4 starter, as he has been when pitching well at other times in his career?

 

Lucky events get bunched together all the time. The coin flips demonstrate that. Each flip is an independent event, so luck is not a persistent quality.

 

 

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

You are reasoning with the benefit of hindsight. 

 

The coin flips are a good example. Let's say I flip 10 heads in a row. Then I flip heads again. Was that 11th flip a reflection of persistent luck? In other words, when I flipped for the 11th time, were the odds of getting heads greater than 50/50, because I was on a lucky streak? 

 

Luck is only persistent if it actually changes what you expect to happen in the future. For Pelfrey's next start, what pitcher do you view him as? A guy who is a #1 starter? A #3-4 starter, as he has been when pitching well at other times in his career?

 

Lucky events get bunched together all the time. The coin flips demonstrate that. Each flip is an independent event, so luck is not a persistent quality.

It's a persistent quality in hindsight, yes. In no way have I implied otherwise.

 

Have I predicted greatness for Pelfrey in the second half of the season? No, I absolutely have not done that (in fact, I've implied he will not keep it up at this level)... But I'm not going to remove a guy who is rolling simply because I'm skeptical he can keep it up. Keep throwing him out there until the results change (particularly when the downside of doing so is incredibly small). I said the same thing about Santana last season and Rosario this season. They're not displaying the skill to maintain greatness over a long period of time but as the old adage goes, "I'd rather be lucky than good". They keep playing until they are no longer lucky.

[diehardtwinsfan]

Yeah, if I thought Pelfrey was getting by on smoke and mirrors, I could see trading him, but he's pitching way too well right now.  If the Twins fall apart between now and July 31, you can rethink that, but right now, he's pitching way too well.  The guy I'd trade is Milone personally or Nolasco if someone would be willing to give a bucket of balls for him.  They would not yield the best returns, but they would keep the best team on the field for 2015. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Yeah, if I thought Pelfrey was getting by on smoke and mirrors, I could see trading him, but he's pitching way too well right now.  If the Twins fall apart between now and July 31, you can rethink that, but right now, he's pitching way too well.  The guy I'd trade is Milone personally or Nolasco if someone would be willing to give a bucket of balls for him.  They would not yield the best returns, but they would keep the best team on the field for 2015. 

Yeah, all of this. There's still plenty of time before the deadline for the wheels to come off, making a trade more likely.

 

I'm all in favor of two things for 2015:

 

1. Keep the best team on the field for as long as possible

2. Do not give up substantial items on the farm to make the team better

 

There's a lot of winning in the Twins' future. I'm not ready to sacrifice that for a 2015 squad that seems fueled by a considerable amount of luck.

[diehardtwinsfan]

I think Luck is a poor way of describing this.  Pelfrey is doing something different that players aren't able to compensate for.  They will probably figure this out at some point, at which point his 'luck' will run out, but it isn't luck.  It's a skill.  He may find that he's unable to replicate the skill to that level next year as well, but I'd hesitate to call it luck.  He may not be getting Ks, but he's getting plenty of movement on his pitches and inducing a lot of weak contact.

[jimbo92107]

 

The only thing that matters to me right now is that Mike Pelfrey is probably better than anyone the Twins will use to replace him.

Finally somebody said it. Along with tons of crazy trade talk in this thread, very few have noted that Mike Pelfrey right now is the steadiest, best pitcher on this staff.

 

It took two years after his TJ, but now Pelfrey is 100 percent healthy. Even more important, he's pitching now better than at any other time in his career, thanks to rigorous physical training, more careful attention to mechanics, and his new fork ball, which is making good hitters look foolish.

 

Pelfrey's performance is no fluke. He already knew how to pitch, but now he's more precise. His improved command comes from more careful mechanics. He still doesn't whiff guys that often, but that's because his stuff doesn't move that much. Still, firing 94mph heaters bending six inches left or right to the lower corners is keeping most hitters off the barrel, and he saves his fork ball for important situations. He's also doing a good job changing speeds, getting fouls with a decent change up.

 

I don't like the Kershaw comparisons, they're kind of insulting. Mike Pelfrey has re-constructed himself into a good major league pitcher, and I'm really happy for him. He's a very likeable guy, and I love having him on the Twins. The other players like him, and I don't want to see him go. If he was a total jerk, maybe I wouldn't care, but he's a really good guy, doing really well. Can't we just enjoy that for a while without dissecting the man for his trade value?

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

I think Luck is a poor way of describing this.  Pelfrey is doing something different that players aren't able to compensate for.  They will probably figure this out at some point, at which point his 'luck' will run out, but it isn't luck.  It's a skill.  He may find that he's unable to replicate the skill to that level next year as well, but I'd hesitate to call it luck.  He may not be getting Ks, but he's getting plenty of movement on his pitches and inducing a lot of weak contact.

I also think this is likely. I believe Mike Pelfrey is a better pitcher this season than he has been in past seasons. Part of it is luck - which is why I don't believe he'll continue to be in the hunt for the ERA lead - but some of it appears to be skill-based as well.

 

I believe a luck neutral Mike Pelfrey is a decent pitcher, which still makes him a valuable player on the 2015 Twins. Even if he falls back to earth, there's still a place for him in 2015.

 

2016? Eh, maybe not so much.

[drjim]

 

What would be the reasoning for this?

Why would a team in contention trade two starters away? Heck, Why would a team in contention trade two starters for two top A-ball prospects, much less two C+ prospects?

That makes no sense to me.

 

Why win now when you have the chance if everything breaks right to get some extra value in 2018?

[Ben Noble]

 

As SpiritofVodkaDave mentioned in the Rotation forum, Ervin Santana is bound to make his Twins debut in 2 weeks. That leaves us fans with a lot of questions on who's in, and who's out in the rotation. The lowest hanging fruit to clear up the rotation log jam and free up a spot on the 40 man roster going forward is Mike Pelfrey. The man is currently on the final year of his contract, and is most likely viewed as a rental player on a contending team.

 

I don't think there is a logjam in the starting rotation. As the Twins have shown over the past few seasons, a contending team needs at least six MLB-quality starters under team control, and I don't want to see one more AAAA pitcher make a start for the Twins. Not this season. Or next. Or for awhile.

 

We don't have six or seven or eight starters right now, we have five: Hughes, Pelfrey, Gibson, May and Milone. Nolasco is on the DL, that's nothing unusual for him, and he's had, to put it lightly, periods of ineffectiveness when he has been healthy. Santana is suspended and has yet to pitch in a game this year; he'll need minor league starts to work his way back to being MLB game ready, and even once he does that, we don't know how effective he'll be after time off and without the aid of PEDs. I'm a big fan of Berrios but, while he's pitched well, he is not knocking the door off the hinges at AA. I'm not enamored with either Duffey or Darnell or any of the other AAA starters. Oh, and Meyer is a reliever now, at least for the time being; remember when we were all so concerned about blocking Meyer from the rotation?

 

So right now we have five starters, and I'd argue that we're actually thin at the position, at least for the next few weeks. I'm going to go ahead and literally knock on wood with one hand while I type with the other, but what happens if last season turns out to be a career year for Hughes, this turns out to be a career half-season for Pelfrey, Gibson's tightrope-walking blows up, May's control issues resurface or Milone becomes as easily to hit as his 'stuff' would indicate? I think it's reasonable for any one of these five things to happen. And a major injury could strike any of these guys at any time which, at least right now, would likely mean a AAAA player starting games for the Twins. No thanks.

 

All of that being said, if Santana comes back strong, Nolasco comes back okay and the rest of the starters at the very least maintain, I still think you'd have to get a Ramos-type deal to move Pelfrey at this point, and even then you'd probably have to package him with a prospect. But that's a lot of 'ifs.'

[Shane Wahl]

78.2 IP and the love for Mike Pelfrey is so rampant around here.

 

FIP at right about career numbers.

 

Trade him.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

78.2 IP and the love for Mike Pelfrey is so rampant around here.

 

FIP at right about career numbers.

 

Trade him.

You must enjoy watching bad baseball.

 

I'm against trading Pelfrey unless another team loses their minds and offers something you can't pass up like a valuable young catcher, someone that can not only help the 2015 Twins but also the 2016-??? Twins.

 

That's not going to happen so I'm just going to enjoy the 2015 wins and then move on. There is so little to be lost by keeping Pelfrey and letting him walk after the season. I don't understand why you're so adamantly in favor of squandering a chance to watch fun baseball in 2015 just so the Twins can bolster an already absurdly-talented farm system with either a marginal MLB player or a guy who won't impact the team until 2019 or later.

 

Sometimes the most logical route is to not worry about what happens in 36 months and simply enjoy the present, particularly when the downside/upside of the move barely twitches the needle.

[drivlikejehu]

 

78.2 IP and the love for Mike Pelfrey is so rampant around here.

 

FIP at right about career numbers.

 

Trade him.

 

I share your puzzlement over how dramatically overrated he has become, but the problem is that other MLB clubs aren't fooled. He has minimal trade value. The Twins may as well keep him around unless he implodes or someone offers to overpay. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

I share your puzzlement over how dramatically overrated he has become, but the problem is that other MLB clubs aren't fooled. He has minimal trade value. The Twins may as well keep him around unless he implodes or someone offers to overpay. 

Exactly. It's not so much that I love Mike Pelfrey, it's that the return on him isn't going to have much of an impact and I'm not willing to risk the Twins going in the tank because they traded Mike Pelfrey and picked up a marginal prospect in the process. We're past the point of worrying about acquiring marginal prospects for rental players.

 

If the Twins are blown away by an offer, yeah, you trade almost anybody on the team at that point.

 

See? We can agree on something.

[Monkeypaws]

Pelfrey has tended to alternate between good season / bad season over his career. This is the good season of that cycle. If the Twins want to continue to flirt with playoff baseball, keeping him makes sense.

[howeda7]

 

Not to mention, no team in baseball is going to trade a starting pitcher, who is performing well while the team is in contention, for an A ball lotto ticket.

 

No team.

 

I'll say again...if TR were to do that, he should be fired immediately.

This. The PR hit, in public and even more in the clubhouse would not be worth it. I think TR learned his lesson when he traded Castillo for Drew Butera in 2007 and Johan and Hunter pretty much refused to even discuss extensions with him after that.

[Vanimal46]

Thanks for blowing up my first attempt at starting a thread on TD!!

 

I think we've determined that Pelf has more value on our team this year than making a trade.

 

My new question: Is there any current staff member that has enough trade value to get that close to MLB ready catcher that we so desperately need?

[nicksaviking]

This. The PR hit, in public and even more in the clubhouse would not be worth it. I think TR learned his lesson when he traded Castillo for Drew Butera in 2007 and Johan and Hunter pretty much refused to even discuss extensions with him after that.

If TR is in fact making decissions based on PR, he has no business being a GM.

 

I think Pelfrey is less 2014 Hughes but more 2014 Suzuki. His current numbers are a mirage. Maybe the team shouldn't trade him, but now that he's pitched "well" he's probably earned a longer leash. Do we really want him to even have a leash at all? We all know how bad it can get, but now he's built up enough good will that he'd likely get a half dozen extra starts before he gets replaced if he happens to hit the wall. Counting on him could be dangerous.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Thanks for blowing up my first attempt at starting a thread on TD!!

I think we've determined that Pelf has more value on our team this year than making a trade.

My new question: Is there any current staff member that has enough trade value to get that close to MLB ready catcher that we so desperately need?

May, possibly Gibson.

 

I'd consider moving either for the right guy. The Twins have a lot of pitchers both on the 40-man and 1-2 years away from the 40-man.

 

They have zero good catchers.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

If TR is in fact making decissions based on PR, he has no business being a GM.

That's not true at all. At the end of the day, the Twins are a business. That business involves convincing people to buy into your product. Those people shouldn't be kicked in the shins and shouldn't have the perception that you're trying to kick them in the shins.

 

And that's PR. It's absolutely something Ryan has to consider on some level. Most of the time, it shouldn't be the driving force behind a decision (PR has to be viewed both in the current day and potential future losses/gains) but it should be a consideration.

[Brock Beauchamp]

To elaborate a bit further, look at the 2000s Twins and the 2000s Marlins.

 

To some, the Marlins were more successful because they won it all in 2003.

 

The Twins won consistently but never won it all. To some, that's a failure... but to the Twins, it was an extremely successful decade.

 

In 2001, the Twins drew 1.78m fans. By 2010, the Twins had leveraged that decade of success into Target Field and 3.22m fans through the turnstyles (and that's not including increased merch sales, TV deals, etc.).

 

Some of that is PR. Even with a new stadium, the Marlins struggle to retain fans (just 2.2m fans in Marlins Park inaugural season, already down to 1.7m fans last season). Sure, they won it all, but they also repeatedly kicked their fanbase in the shins by selling off the team en masse whenever ownership needed a buck. Even in their World Series season of 2003, the Marlins only drew 1.3m fans. In the decade, they never even drew 1.9m fans in a season. By comparison, the Twins had upward momentum almost every year from 2001-2010. They drew over 1.9m fans eight times and barely missed the number a ninth year.

 

While there's more to the argument than that - the Twins and Marlins are in different situations - there is definitely a correlation between attendance (and therefore operating business revenue) and undermining your fanbase's perceptions of the team whenever it's convenient to the pocketbook. Part of that PR maintenance is dependent on how the GM does his job.

[Shane Wahl]

 

You must enjoy watching bad baseball.

 

I'm against trading Pelfrey unless another team loses their minds and offers something you can't pass up like a valuable young catcher, someone that can not only help the 2015 Twins but also the 2016-??? Twins.

 

That's not going to happen so I'm just going to enjoy the 2015 wins and then move on. There is so little to be lost by keeping Pelfrey and letting him walk after the season. I don't understand why you're so adamantly in favor of squandering a chance to watch fun baseball in 2015 just so the Twins can bolster an already absurdly-talented farm system with either a marginal MLB player or a guy who won't impact the team until 2019 or later.

 

Sometimes the most logical route is to not worry about what happens in 36 months and simply enjoy the present, particularly when the downside/upside of the move barely twitches the needle.

 

Sorry, I didn't mean trade him today. I meant--barring injury to someone else after Ervin starts pitching--in three to five weeks up until the deadline. It's a matter of Hughes-Santana-Gibson-May and Nolasco/Pelfrey/Milone. Two of the last three are tradeable and there are options for depth in Rogers, Duffey, and Berrios.

 

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Sorry, I didn't mean trade him today. I meant--barring injury to someone else after Ervin starts pitching--in three to five weeks up until the deadline. It's a matter of Hughes-Santana-Gibson-May and Nolasco/Pelfrey/Milone. Two of the last three are tradeable and there are options for depth in Rogers, Duffey, and Berrios.

My problem with trading him for Santana is that if you earnestly believe the Twins have a shot at the playoffs (personally, I believe the Twins have a shot but it's not a particularly good shot... I'll say 25% if you want a number), Santana cannot pitch in the playoffs while Pelfrey obviously can.

 

Given the downside (or lack thereof) of not trading Pelfrey, that should be a consideration. It's not only about Pelfrey pitching well now, it's also about the diminished roster the Twins would field if they made the playoffs.

 

Again, if the Twins really had something to gain by trading Mike, I may feel differently about it.

[blairpaul715]

I really dont know anything about FIP and xFIP, but i do know luck and i think i know when someone is pitching well or not, but I think if someone wants to go back, i would take luck over FIP or xFIP when it comes to the 87 Twins, I bet that team wasnt going to win it again if the season were to be played again........enjoy the ride while it lasts, it may take you to the promised land before regressing to the means.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

Thanks for blowing up my first attempt at starting a thread on TD!!

I think we've determined that Pelf has more value on our team this year than making a trade.

My new question: Is there any current staff member that has enough trade value to get that close to MLB ready catcher that we so desperately need?

 

I'd say Gibson or May probably would.  Plouffe might as well, though he's technically not on the staff. 

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

If TR is in fact making decissions based on PR, he has no business being a GM.
 

 

I think every owner in every professional sport would disagree with you there, not to mention the non-sporting examples.  PR sells product.  That's part of his responsibility.  I do agree that there's a time to sacrifice PR in favor of the long term needs of the organization, but I fail to see where Pelfrey would return anything close to something to make it worthwhile.  I think he return will be higher than say what it would be for Milone, but I highly doubt he's going to be netting a top 100 prospect.

[nicksaviking]

I think every owner in every professional sport would disagree with you there, not to mention the non-sporting examples.  PR sells product.  That's part of his responsibility.  I do agree that there's a time to sacrifice PR in favor of the long term needs of the organization, but I fail to see where Pelfrey would return anything close to something to make it worthwhile.  I think he return will be higher than say what it would be for Milone, but I highly doubt he's going to be netting a top 100 prospect.

Seems to me we're asking Ryan to also do St. Peter's job than.

 

It was my understanding that Ryan was supposed to do what he thinks is best for the team. If what Ryan thought what's best for the team wasn't necessarily what's best for the business, that's when ownership or the team president tell him to go jump in a lake.

 

But I forgot, this is the Twins we're talking about. Everyone has to share the same ideas so as not to cause awkwardness at the company X-mas party.

[howeda7]

 

If TR is in fact making decissions based on PR, he has no business being a GM.

I think Pelfrey is less 2014 Hughes but more 2014 Suzuki. His current numbers are a mirage. Maybe the team shouldn't trade him, but now that he's pitched "well" he's probably earned a longer leash. Do we really want him to even have a leash at all? We all know how bad it can get, but now he's built up enough good will that he'd likely get a half dozen extra starts before he gets replaced if he happens to hit the wall. Counting on him could be dangerous.

Under no circumstances do I want him on the team next year. But you're getting a marginal prospect at best. It's not worth it unless they've fallen completely out of the race by 7/31.

[Jham]

Seriously, if we would have DFA'd Pelfrey after spring training, I would not have been mad at all.  I'm certainly not going to be mad if he goes back to the old Pelf after giving us a stellar first half.  He's already provided more than I ever expected anyway.  

Regarding luck: I think this term gets thrown around too much by sabermatricians who can't explain why their predictive stat isn't correctly predicting.  No metric can correctly account for every variable in the game of baseball.  Calling the variables we can't quantify "luck" is not only an incorrect description, it's willfully ignorant.  If we bet on Pelfrey's ERA for each start this year and you based your guess on his FIP and mine on his current ERA, I'd have most of your money.  Which has been the better predictor?  No stat is perfect.  Maybe it will even out.  Maybe his FIP is inflated and will drop.  Maybe he's doing something FIP doesn't even account for.

I remember reading Bill James' Moneyball and his statement that "clutch" doesn't exist, and thinking, "Really?  He's trying to bring science to baseball, and his way of trying to explain something he doesn't understand isn't to study it, it's to deny that it exists?"  :Let's say perhaps Pelfrey is striking out fewer and getting "lucky" double plays is because he's trying to replicate his success and get double plays instead of strike outs.  At what point are all the double plays not "luck"?

 

I'm not going to look up the stats, so perhaps I'm wrong.  It seems like Pelfrey has much better command, equal or better velocity, and vastly improved split-finger change.  His stuff is better.  His results are better.  I would guess the K's will come and the FIP will start to edge down.  

 

[h2oface]

Just keep him and see what happens. The system is redundant now for the next several years. 

[AlwaysinModeration]

Trade him before Terry does something silly like extend him.

While I agree with this plan, the mechanics of this approach are somewhat amusing. "Quick, Terry, trade him before you decide to do the opposite!"