Sox re-sign Koji
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Snod makes a great point in his edit. Whether it was Koji or someone else, the Sox needed a closer. It's done at an AAV of 9 million. It was cash and cash only. Many here have suggested that the Sox have plenty to spend. A couple of million over what he might be worth to others shouldn't impede The Sox ability to pursue other players. All of the coveted "chips" are still in place to use where and if needed. A need has been secured, and there are plenty still to be addressed. Next.
soxhop411 said:
Look at it this way: relief pitchers pitched slightly more than a third of all innings this year, yet (according to FG) they accounted for slightly less than a fifth of pitching WAR (SP fWAR = 345.2, RP fWAR = 84.8). This means that teams are concentrating quality performance on starter innings to the tune of about 1.7:1.
Now you could argue that this is rational, since more relief innings than starter innings are pitched when the game has reached a point where there is not much doubt about the outcome, and therefore quality performance has less value. OTOH, more relief innings than starter innings are also pitched when there is strong doubt about the outcome and very little time to recover from adverse events. In those situations quality performance has a very high value. Therefore I would question whether starter innings are really worth 1.7x as much as relief innings. That seems counterintuitive. (I assume someone has studied this systematically, but Google is not finding this.)
Anyway, let's say that Miller and Uehara between them pitch 120 innings next year--about 60% of a starter's workload--but they pitch those innings at a performance level that matches or exceeds that of the best starter in baseball, and they are very high-leverage innings. What is Clayton Kershaw making next year? What's 60% of that? What are we talking about paying Miller and Uehara? Hey, look how well that works....
Savin Hillbilly said:
Wonder how Zach Duke would fit in the bullpen, assuming he might be available at a fraction of MIller's cost. How would he fit in? Not sure he could close either. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.cgi?id=dukeza01&t=p&year=2014
The could not pick up Breslow's option, leaving only Tazawa and Mujica, and then conceivably have multiple options among league minimum players (Workman, Ranaudo, Layne, Britton, Wilson) to make up the other 3 spots in the bullpen without sacrificing any performance relative to last season.soxhop411 said:
At some point, all the payroll flexibility created by the awesome farm system needs to be converted into all-star level performance at some positions other than 2B and DH.
Interesting post. Good food for thoughtSavin Hillbilly said:
Look at it this way: relief pitchers pitched slightly more than a third of all innings this year, yet (according to FG) they accounted for slightly less than a fifth of pitching WAR (SP fWAR = 345.2, RP fWAR = 84.8). This means that teams are concentrating quality performance on starter innings to the tune of about 1.7:1.
Now you could argue that this is rational, since more relief innings than starter innings are pitched when the game has reached a point where there is not much doubt about the outcome, and therefore quality performance has less value. OTOH, more relief innings than starter innings are also pitched when there is strong doubt about the outcome and very little time to recover from adverse events. In those situations quality performance has a very high value. Therefore I would question whether starter innings are really worth 1.7x as much as relief innings. That seems counterintuitive. (I assume someone has studied this systematically, but Google is not finding this.)
Anyway, let's say that Miller and Uehara between them pitch 120 innings next year--about 60% of a starter's workload--but they pitch those innings at a performance level that matches or exceeds that of the best starter in baseball, and they are very high-leverage innings. What is Clayton Kershaw making next year? What's 60% of that? What are we talking about paying Miller and Uehara? Hey, look how well that works....
Snodgrass'Muff said:
I don't follow the logic. I suppose I understand preferring 1/15 to 2/18 if you are absolutely convinced he won't be worth 3M a season from now. Otherwise…. why do people obsess over years even when the total money isn't very different between the 2 options?
This deal makes the AAV 9 instead of 15 this year, which I'd generally prefer (unless for some reason there is a benefit to take a huge hit on Koji now for the sake of next offseason)
I'm sure the owners are plenty capable of budgeting appropriately. If 9M in 2016 sounds so awful, Henry can put his saved 6M in the bank and take it out next year so it feels like he is just paying 3M. There are so many moving parts with the roster and so many young guys coming up, I wouldn't worry about the AAV hit in 2016 anyway.
Postseason obviously has me among the group of people thinking differently about the bullpen. If the late-season swoon was just fatigue and he's 100% in April, this is a great deal. Assume the team has pretty good knowledge on that, knows the arm and shoulder are healthy.
Keep in mind, he pitched huge innings all throughout October last year. This year, he'll have more time to rest and recover. Rooting for this deal.
Keep in mind, he pitched huge innings all throughout October last year. This year, he'll have more time to rest and recover. Rooting for this deal.
To some extent at least I have to agree with this. Perhaps things get a little harder to predict for players at the extremes like Koji is now, but all of those players listed, and almost every single player who reaches FA in this day and age, is old enough that they should only be expected to get worse. Baseball players don't just hang on to competence until they fall off a cliff at some yet unknown age, but decline fairly gradually and almost linearly as a group. If two players have the same talent level and are currently a couple years apart (say, 29 and 33), I doubt their age is anything more than a tiebreaker when deciding which is more valuable given an identical contract.benhogan said:
As for Koji, he may be 40, but he has been absurdly good over the past three years and Steamer still projects his ancient arm to put up a 2.38 ERA and a 2.87 FIP. I still don't see him being worth more than two (regular season) wins over the life of the deal, so it is probably an overpay, but only by a couple million and if they do make the playoffs he could quite possibly earn all of that money.
I'm hoping Koji works into very late October in 2015, even if that means he may fade and be overpaid in 2016.
LostinNJ said:
This is a good point. Its worth the slight overpay to get the ball rolling
kieckeredinthehead said:
Keith Foulke redux. (i know it didnlt hapen exactly that way since Foulke had the multi year Sox deal and retired before taking Clevelands money....but the similarities in post-season heroics and follow-up done-ness are there. But OTOH--Foulke was *never* good after '04; Koji was still Koji for much of '14.)
I came here expecting to find most considering this an over-pay. I feel a little reassured by the reactions. I suppose the Sox know that his tired arm was just tired and not dead. Anyway, I am feeling considerable relief (sorry) and hope that they can find the money for Miller as well.
I don't think there is much of a chance that this was about fan favorites. This is the same organization that traded fan favorites Jon Lester and Nomar Garcipaparra, and let a guy named Perdro go to the Mets for what they rightly believed was too much money. And there are other examples of favorites they've not kept around to keep the fans happy (Manny and Damon, to name a few).JimD said:
One can debate whether 2/$18 mm is too much for the skill set that Koji offers, but my assumption is that the deal was given to him because they think what he will provide them on the field is worth it.
Now, it's true, they DO seem to have a soft spot for David Ortiz and perhaps sentimentality comes into play there to some extent. But even with David, they've always kept the years short and never really gave him the kind of gold watch contract that he was looking for.
soxhop411 said:
Neither Robertson nor Miller fell apart at the end of their age 39 season last year. Those comparisons aren't fair.
ivanvamp said:
A $9m middle reliever isn't really a good use of resources.
I don't think the deal is terrible and I'd rather have him than lose him. The amount at risk is relatively small. But I still say this is clearly an overpay and there's very little chance that they get their money's worth over the next two years. I'd love to be wrong.
soxhop411 said:
I think they should sign a strong MLB bullpen arm like Miller, for both baseball and roster reasons.
Baseball-wise, signing Miller would allow the Sox to keep both Tazawa and Uehara's workload reasonable. The way Farrell manages in-game, both are at serious risk of being Proctored in 2015 without that third dependable arm at the back of the bullpen.
Roster-wise, they'll probably need to deal off many of their mid-level AAA starting arms who would otherwise be eventually convertible to strong MLB bullpen arms, in order to acquire strong MLB starting arms under more reasonable-length deals outside of the free agency market.
Of course, they could just roll the dice by signing Lester and Shields and letting the bullpen sort itself out among all the club-controlled arms who are still in pre-arb, but Koji's quick signing makes me almost certain that won't happen. Four years of Hamels-Latos-Uehara-Miller is far less risky than 6-7 years of Lester-Shields-Uehara-Britton/Escobar/Rodriguez/Johnson, even if the net AAV of the former group is higher.
YTF said:
I don't like this deal - he looked cooked at the end of the year, and it would be different if he were younger, I would be more willing to think he could "easily" bounce back, but few players can do that once in their 40s. I also don't like the idea that you have to pay exorbitantly for a closer, which the Sox specifically did not do when the let Papelbon go for instance. The O's had a pretty good closer last year who had 37 saves and a 1.65 ERA - he made $521,500, which allowed them to go out and sign Cruz and other key guys on that team. Every year teams promote youngsters to the closer role and find great value - given all our young pitching you would think they could give a few of these guys a shot, and then acquire someone in a trade if need be later down the road.
$9M is not "nothing" even for the Sox, especially if he is ineffective/injured and therefore someone else needs to be paid to do his job/he is taking one of 25 roster spots and not providing $9M in value. I hope that is not the case next season, but again, he is 40 years old and the splitter ain't "easy" on the arm. I just think we have several other needs that will require potentially significant spending (starting pitchers, 3B etc...) to acquire them as free agents, and the money would be better spent there. Will be crossing my fingers/rooting for this to work.....
For those ambivalent about the deal, I am interested in your thoughts about alternatives. Seem to me there are two. First, Mujica and go after sign a 7th or 8th inning arm for 50 to 70 percent of the money given to Koji. (Or go after Miller for more.). Second, sign a different free agent closer.
Who on the market do you target? It's a pretty small list. Sergio Romo? A possible option, but he was stripped of his closer duties in the NL. Robertson? Probably means a bidding war with the Yankees, assuming he doesn't get a QO. Soriano? Seems a legit option, but no cheaper than Koji I assume. And until just an hour ago, you don't know whether the Nats will exercise his option (they didn't). Putz? Bell? Veras?
Seems to me that dominant Koji is better than any of these guys by a wide margin, and there is still a reasonable chance he can be that again. Mujica pitched well enough down the stretch to feel we have a potential safety net, but certainly his body of work doesn't seem to justify going all in with him as closer just to save $3 to $5 million or so for each of the next two years.
I guess it's just hard to hear "overpay" in the abstract with no real discussion of alternatives. If a case can be made for Mujica or Soriano/K-Rod, that's fine, but all have warts as bad as Koji's August swoon. I'd rather go with the known quantity even if the big upside is as much hope as expectation.
Who on the market do you target? It's a pretty small list. Sergio Romo? A possible option, but he was stripped of his closer duties in the NL. Robertson? Probably means a bidding war with the Yankees, assuming he doesn't get a QO. Soriano? Seems a legit option, but no cheaper than Koji I assume. And until just an hour ago, you don't know whether the Nats will exercise his option (they didn't). Putz? Bell? Veras?
Seems to me that dominant Koji is better than any of these guys by a wide margin, and there is still a reasonable chance he can be that again. Mujica pitched well enough down the stretch to feel we have a potential safety net, but certainly his body of work doesn't seem to justify going all in with him as closer just to save $3 to $5 million or so for each of the next two years.
I guess it's just hard to hear "overpay" in the abstract with no real discussion of alternatives. If a case can be made for Mujica or Soriano/K-Rod, that's fine, but all have warts as bad as Koji's August swoon. I'd rather go with the known quantity even if the big upside is as much hope as expectation.
Can I just say this to the people who don't like the deal?
IT'S ONLY EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS.
Serioiusly, people, it's a short deal for half of what top flight closers get on the open market. The only way the Sox don't get value out of this is if he bombs so bad he needs to be cut.
IT'S ONLY EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS.
Serioiusly, people, it's a short deal for half of what top flight closers get on the open market. The only way the Sox don't get value out of this is if he bombs so bad he needs to be cut.
Rasputin said:
What happened to the other $10m they just guaranteed him?
The main issue with this isn't the money. It's that with this contract it's assumed he's the closer. What happens if he simply can't pitch for 6-7 months straight anymore, and come August he wears down again and they have to scramble to find a replacement closer? And then what happens if the following year, at age 41, he can only make it through the ASG?
And what happens if he gets a little lucky and pitches like the guy he has been for pretty much his entire career?glennhoffmania said:
I don't know if this is a good deal or not, but I feel it is a pretty safe bet that Koji will be worth about 1.5 wins over the next two years, and two seems reasonable. At $7M per win it is an overpay, but only by a couple million, perhaps $7M or so at the most, and I am not accounting for playoff value here. If your worst case scenario comes true sure we lose out on $18M, but you can say that about basically anyone and I am not convinced Koji is really any more likely to cost the Red Sox $18M for no benefit than someone like Miller or Sandoval.
Maybe he wears down and implodes. Maybe he recreates 2013. Both are possible, and both seem highly unlikely. If you can cite some research on why Koji being 40 and mediocre in the second half makes him disproportionately risky then I will be very interested to read it, but frankly I think both factors are being blown wildly out of proportion here.
In response to multiple posters who say Koji was cooked at the end of year ...
From August 16 - September 4 he had 6 straight bad outing where he indeed looked cooked. But after a rest he finished the season with 3 strong outings, allowing 1 hit, walking none, and striking out 5. That's pretty strong evidence that we wasn't cooked, but simply needed a rest.
Sure, this may mean Farrell needs to watch his usage which lowers his value, and his age is certainly a risk factor. But the idea that his bad stretch means he'll never be effective again (which is how I interpret cooked) seems like an over-reaction.
From August 16 - September 4 he had 6 straight bad outing where he indeed looked cooked. But after a rest he finished the season with 3 strong outings, allowing 1 hit, walking none, and striking out 5. That's pretty strong evidence that we wasn't cooked, but simply needed a rest.
Sure, this may mean Farrell needs to watch his usage which lowers his value, and his age is certainly a risk factor. But the idea that his bad stretch means he'll never be effective again (which is how I interpret cooked) seems like an over-reaction.
DennyDoyle'sBoil said:
Or three - how about promote a youngster from within, or is that never an option b/c we are a "big market" team? Has worked for many other teams....
TheYaz67 said:
Ok, but I guess, again, who? You don't want to take a potential starter off track to save $8 million a year, unless you're already feeling pretty clear that starter is not the right role.
I'll take it as a matter of faith that teams have successfully promoted a young player to closer successfully, but who specifically in the organization do you see in that role to start 2015? I see people talking about Zach Britton above, which is a great example of a young player who grew into the closer role. But, this is a guy with 250 MLB innings under his belt, and he didn't even start out the year as the closer. He only got the gig because Tommy Hunter had two blown outings in a row or something.
If Workman or something turns out to be a lights out 8th inning guy with a closer's mentality, that's great. If there's a guy in the minors being groomed for a starter position who seems to fade after 3 innings, maybe give it a try. But the notion of promoting for closer from within is not unappealing to me because we're a big market club with money -- it's a zero sum game and I get that a dollar spent here is one less to be spent elsewhere. My problem with it is that it significantly raises the possibility that Edward F-ing Mujica is our 2015 closer.
We know that Uehara's a beast when healthy. We know he doesn't shrink from the limelight (even if he gets nauseous) and that his teammates love him.
It's 2 years. It's reasonable closer money. It doesn't preclude them from paying for another top reliever and/or from trying to develop other late inning arms out of our prospect pool. Other than his age, I see nothing not to like about this deal.
It's 2 years. It's reasonable closer money. It doesn't preclude them from paying for another top reliever and/or from trying to develop other late inning arms out of our prospect pool. Other than his age, I see nothing not to like about this deal.
phenweigh said:
I agree that Koji's slump does not necessarily mean he's cooked. For one thing, he came back strong when his command returned. For another, Koji's stuff (88 mph FB, 81splitter) is of the kind that doesn't cook. He doesn't have a lot of velocity to lose, so he should age better than a reliever who depends on velocity (eg, Papelbon's 97 heat). Outstanding command of moderate velocity doesn't disappear overnight, except in the case of injury or overwork. I see reason to think that Uehara will age like Rivera.
Just don't let him shag flyballs in the outfield. :unsure2:
Sprowl said:
To my eye he completely lost his splitter - so I don't think the issue was command related. And when your only remaining pitch was an 88mph FB that obviously spelled trouble.
Is this how it works though? Sure Koji only throws 88, but that's still his max effort. I'd be surprised if he was immune to velocity loss just because his max effort doesn't produce 100mph fastballs. I'd be curious to see data showing otherwise.Sprowl said:
He may lose a bit less absolute velocity than a fireballer since an X% velocity loss for him is a smaller absolute number than for someone who throws 95-100. But I still wouldn't be shocked if he drops an important amount (for example 88 to 86 rather than 95 to 92). Without looking up the numbers, I seem to remember slower throwers like Glavine losing velocity off their fastball as they aged.
Unfortunately for Koji, even a small drop could make him "cooked". Hopefully he has another couple years of 88 mph pinpoint control with the same action on that splitter. I'd probably take the risk that he can do it, but it's hardly assured.
Edit: after looking it up….
Glavine stayed around 85 mph for awhile towards the end of his career until age 40. He then dropped to 83.7 and 82.1 mph over the next 2 years and was out of the league at age 42.
DennyDoyle'sBoil said:
It's not so much as "starter not being the right role" as what the needs of the club are, and what the resources of the club are.
Right now, in terms of young pitching we have Owens, RDLD, Webster, Barnes, Workman, Ranaudo, Rodriguez, Johnson, and Escobar. We could get a good mix in terms of their ultimate potentials as starters, or they could all be #5s or busts. While the optimal strategy in a vacuum would be to develop each of them as starters in the minors and gently transition them to the ML club, the Sox might be best served to promote a couple of these guys via the bullpen, a la the 70s Orioles model, or Derek Lowe's career path.
We've seen a lot of guys have success out of the pen that they didn't enjoy as average to meh starters.
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