If you believe Buster, and I happen to like most of his stuff --neutral site for World Series notwithstanding--, here's his take on Peavy and the Yanks:The past conversations between the Padres and the Yankees about Jake Peavy never developed into anything that close to being serious, sources say, and it's highly unlikely the Padres and Yankees will ever get serious about a Peavy deal.
The Yankees are focused almost entirely on adding pitching through free agency, because they won't have to part with their prospects in a deal. CC Sabathia, Derek Lowe and A.J. Burnett are the Yankees' targets, and not Peavy.
So, in practice, two things would have to happen before Peavy-to-the-Yankees became serious:
1. A whole bunch of other pursuits would have to end badly.
2. The price on Peavy would have to come down.
When I started floating the "trade for Peavy" idea mid-summer, it was without much due diligence. I have also been consistently saying that I won't believe the Yanks are out of any Peavy deal until the ink is on another team's paperwork, or the team reports to Spring Training without Peavy in pinstripes. Not that I can really perform "due diligence" from my desk, but I certainly have been able to give it a more in-depth look. What I posted recently:
Here's some data on Peavy's late inning stats and some others that piqued my curiosity (yes, selective stats):
- Peavy faced only 69 batters in innings 7-9
- With only 27 games started, Peavy averaged facing 2.56 batters after the 6th inning
- Batters hit .290 against him later in games
- Peavy faced only 38 batters after throwing his 105th pitch; Averaged 106 pitches per game in 2008 (103 PC/game for a career).
- Peavy's away ERA in 2008 was 4.28; .258 Batting Average Against (BAA)
- Peavy's home ERA in 2008 was 1.75; .205 BAA
- Peavy's almost a neutral GB/FB pitcher, with a 1.11 GB:FB ratio in 2008, in line with career numbers. The bigger Petco keeps the flyballs within the fences for long outs.
- K-rate of 8.60 lowest since 2003, down from 9.67 in 2007. As a result, his K/BB rate of 2.81 was also a low since 2003 and down from 3.53 last year.
My thought on Peavy-to-the-Yanks remains this: If the Yanks can dictate their price (ie: not Hughes), then go for it. But to get into a Santana-like trade+big contract scenario is not a smart move. The team has the obnoxious cash to throw around and can do so without dumping the prospects. I'd like to believe that Cashman will try to do just that.
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3 comments:
Jason, good stuff on the stats, as always.
Obviously, Peavy didn't face a lot of batters after the sixth inning.
But here's one thing most people forget to look at. The Padres were terrible offensively, and Peavy probably was coming out for a pinch-hitter so they could score some runs.
He obviously kept them close and gave them a chance to win, so he was a likely victim of his own success and wasn't around to face batters late in the game. Not because he was getting knocked out, but because he wasn't around to pitch.
Just an opinon. Smarter people than me should do research on this.
Ron:
Fair point about the NL switch. I don't honestly know the answer for that, nor do I know where to look, nor do I have the cycles to spin on it! But good question.
My really basic (like me) answer is this: If you've got a horse keeping your team in a close game, I am not sure you pull him in the 6th or 7th inning. Maybe even later, but pitchers who can complete game are often allowed to give it a shot. Sabathia tossed a bunch of 'em and surely there were some tight ones. And I don't think CC is an appreciably better hitter than Peavy. Besides, who'd be the Padres pinch hitter? Josh Bard? Like that'd be any better than Peavy!
Sorry, that was mean.
If Mr. DePodesta is reading, can you help us?!?!
Is it possible that the Padres were thinking long-term and opted for the pinch-hitters and less arm stress, than the Giants who run their young guns into the ground?
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