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Is Lilly or Meche better than Brian Bannister?

iramets Dec 07 2006 07:06 PM

I'll concede from the outset that they are better, okay? I'm not really interested in arguing the point (though I could be persuaded, I suppose, if you really enjoy such a discussion). But 10 mil per season better? That's what troubles me. Basically, what teams are apparently eager to pay 10+ mil a season for multiple seasons to get is: a guy who maybe can pitch .500 ball for a decent hitting team. Maybe not, of course, but maybe so. Is that so very much different from what you'd expect from a decent AAA pitcher like Bannister, who has demonstrated briefly that he, too, is capable of maybe pitching .500 ball for a decent hitting team? Maybe I'm over-estimating Bannister's value--by popular acclaim, I clearly am-- but remember that you weren't going absolutely crazy last month at the thought that Bannister might end up the Mets' #5 starter in 2007, were you? If that's how the rotation shook out at the end of Spring Training, you would have felt okay about the Mets' chances this year, wouldn't you? Well, how much better does a pitcher like Lilly or Meche make you feel? The point is that pitchers like Bannister are available, and cheap, too. (Some say you can get one for a kid pitcher with a 6.68 ERA and 12 blown saves and more HRs than Babe Ruth, but I think that's an exaggeration.) This recent spate of absurd salaries for veteran mediocrities like Meche and Lilly troubles me, and I think the Mets should stay as far away from this trend as possible.

metirish Dec 07 2006 07:18 PM

I don't think many here would have minded if Bannister was the #5 starter next season as long as Omar had gotten a legit # 1 guy.I dopn't recall anyone here hating on Bannister,if he wins 10 to 12 games next season for KC and the guy we got pitches brilliantly outta the pen for the Mets then it's a good deal for all concerned....

smg58 Dec 07 2006 10:06 PM

The Royals will find out if Meche is that much better than Bannister. Does anybody know where we could look up the VORP (value over replacement player) of guys like Meche and Lilly? I'd be curious to know how large (or small) the number is. My feeling is that if you have that much money to spend, you might as well put in a few million more and get quality. But a good GM could probably find younger guys on the cheap that are just as good if he knew where to look.

iramets Dec 08 2006 08:48 AM

smg58 wrote: The Royals will find out if Meche is that much better than Bannister. . Ya think? Look at it this way: would you want Omar to spend 10+ mil for 5 years to sign Lilly as the Mets' #5 starter. or would you rather (given the choice) roll the dice and see what Bannister can do? To me, it's a no-brainer, with the argument that Lilly might be a better pitcher in 2007, and it's probably more certain of the level of mediocrity that he'll provide, while Bannister has a much wider range of possibilities, both good and bad. But Bannister is so much cheaper, meaning that's he's also disposable if he pitches badly, and has such a higher possible upside, that I literally can't imagine why a team would rather go with one of these proven-mediocre veteran pitchers than an available AAA guy like Bannister. Look: we're reluctant, as I read the 2007 starting pitching thread, to go with Zito because we're unsure he'll be a good enough pitcher five years down the road, and there are people commiting big money to Gil "Gah!!" Meche?He'll be roadkill in five years, because he's not that far above the roadkill level today. Is it that rare to find a starting pitcher with Meche-like abilities? I totally don't get signing "talent" that has demonstrated that it's pretty untalented..

Johnny Dickshot Dec 08 2006 09:08 AM

Here's a take on justifying the move from the KC standpoint. Obviously, the Royals see Meche partly as the Mets viewed Pedro, as a bridge to credibility, and also think he's got good stuff, which most observers agree he does. I can't make a lot of sense of the numbers, so I won't, other than to say Meche is rarer than Bannister, accounting for him getting more (how much more is determined by the market. He's worth what he gets). Posnanski is a pretty good bb columnist btw: ]Sometimes, madness is appropriate JOE POSNANSKI The Kansas City Star Yes, at first glance, it seems a little — what’s the word here? — let us say “surprising” that the Royals gave pitcher Gil Meche a five-year, $55 million deal. However, upon closer inspection, it seems clear that … Wait a minute! The Royals gave Gil Meche what? Fifty-five million? Dollars? Eleven million a year? For Gil Meche? Hello? Is this a joke? Is that American money? Does he come with a chest of doubloons? Can he at least parallel park like those new Lexuses? Is there a doctor in the house? OK, whoa, whoa, let’s slow down a little bit. Yes, people all around the sports world did a Jerry Lewis double-take when they saw that the Royals handed out their biggest free-agent contract ever. They did a triple-take when they noticed that the Royals handed that contract to Gil “Ga” Meche, a pitcher who, it’s quite possible, you have never heard of until this very moment. Don’t feel bad. Meche won 11 and 10 games the last two seasons for lousy Seattle teams. And last year he posted his lowest full-season ERA, a not-exactly-Koufaxlike 4.48. Yes, it would be pretty easy to keep going on in this sarcastic tone for the rest of this column — seriously what could be easier than ripping the sad-sack Royals for spending $55 million on Gil Meche? Columnists dream about opportunities like this. There’s only one small problem: I kind of like this move. OK, wait, let’s state right up front that the Royals grossly overpaid for Meche. Up to this point in his career, Meche has been a very average pitcher when healthy, and he hasn’t always been healthy. To give a very average pitcher who has never thrown 200 innings a season $11 million a year is pure madness. Here’s the thing: Baseball is pure madness right now. There are no $5 blackjack tables at the winter meetings. If you want to improve your baseball team, you have to spend way more than any sane person would spend. The Red Sox spent $51 million for the rights to a Japanese pitcher. The Cubs gave Ted Lilly $11 million per year, and you probably have never heard of him either. The Angels gave Gary Matthews Jr. $10 million per year, and coming into last season he was a lifetime .249 hitter offering no power and balancing that out with no speed. This is baseball free-agency in 2006. Sure, you can be a conscientious objector and not partake in this money-burning madness. That’s a sensible position. But maybe the Royals have been sensible for far too long. They have not in recent years taken the big shot in free-agency. They have messed around with second-tier free agents — the Chuck Knoblauchs and Juan Gonzalezes — and most of those turned out very badly. But they’ve not played big-money blackjack. Wait, you’re saying. Gil Meche is no star. Well, listen: Two days after this lousy Royals season ended, Royals GM Dayton Moore looked hard at the free-agent pitchers. It’s no exaggeration to say that the Royals, for the last 10 years, have been one of the worst pitching teams in baseball history. This season, their “pitcher of the year” was a guy with a 5.71 ERA, so Moore was well aware of the depths of pitching despair. He looked at the pitching free agents, and he kept coming back to that one name: Gil Meche. Yes, it’s true, Meche’s numbers are hardly eye-popping. But his stuff is eye-popping — he throws a mid-90s fastball and a power curve that Moore calls “one of the best in all of baseball.” And Meche is young, too — he just turned 28. Here, for fun, are the pitching stats for three pitchers at that age. Line No. 1: 55 wins, 44 losses, 4.65 ERA, 815 innings, 810 hits, 575 strikeouts, 363 walks. Line No. 2: 49-50, 4.83 ERA, 870 IP, 870 H, 612 K, 331 W. Line No. 3: 43-47, 4.58 ERA, 799 IP, 846 H, 586 K, 344 W. OK, so all three lines are pretty similar. What’s the point? Well, the first line belongs to Gil Meche. The second is Chris Carpenter, who became the best pitcher in the National League. The third is Jason Schmidt, who went 78-37 for San Francisco since 2001 and just signed a contract for almost $16 million per year. Of course, we could easily find comparable pitchers who flopped, but the point is that Dayton Moore and his Royals decision makers looked hard at Meche and decided this was a young man who could emerge. He was the one young pitcher in the group who had a chance to become an ace. So, Moore and his people threw everything into getting Gil Meche. They wooed him, Royals players Mike Sweeney and Mark Grudzielanek called him, they explained that the Royals’ luck is about the change and he was a big part of that. And, of course, they offered him way more money than anyone else — even legendary overspenders like the Cubs and Toronto. That’s what the Royals have to do to get players now. Even with all that, everybody around the game assumed Meche would go somewhere else. He signed with Kansas City. “Look, we could have gone out and spent 4 to 6 million dollars on a fourth or fifth starter,” Moore says. “That’s how much those guys cost now. But we didn’t want to do that. We look at Gil Meche, and we think he’s a guy who could be ready to take off and become an upper-echelon pitcher. He has dominant stuff. He has tremendous makeup. And he wants to be here. To me, it was a no-brainer.” “Is there a risk? Of course there is. … But my philosophy is this: Get the player. We think Gil Meche is the right guy for us.” Was signing Meche a good move? We need a little time to figure that one out. If Meche gets hurt or keeps pitching very average ball or gets worse, then it will be a financial nightmare and a move mocked for many years. Many people around baseball are beating the Christmas rush and mocking the move now. It’s $55 million for Gil Meche, for crying out loud. Thing is, if Meche becomes an ace like Moore believes he can (and it’s not impossible) this might be the key move that helps lift the Royals out of the pit of despair — sort of the way the Pudge Rodriguez signing began to turn things around in Detroit. Big gamble? You betcha. It’s a risky gambit to turn around the Royals. And that’s why I admire it.

Edgy DC Dec 08 2006 09:24 AM

Maybe Meche made them that much more palatable destination for Octavio Dotel. Hey, Dotel, thanks for screwing with the Yankees before going to KC.

iramets Dec 08 2006 09:31 AM

It's a tremendous gamble, as Posnanski says. But why wouldn;t you, especially if you were KC, get ten or fifteen guys like Bannister, pay them a fraction of what you'll pay Meche, and see if one or two of them can pitch as well as Meche? It's not as though KC is planning to contend immediately, is it? Start five of them this year, start five of them at triple A, and put the rest --the ones who don't look very good, in long relief (or the DL) in either KC or KC's triple A team. My point being, that if Meche comes through, and he's a longshot to prove worthy of his salary, he's only one player. I'd plow his salary back into prospects, because it's going to take more than one great player to change KC's chances. ]I can't make a lot of sense of the numbers, so I won't, other than to say Meche is rarer than Bannister, accounting for him getting more (how much more is determined by the market. He's worth what he gets Well, that's pretty tautological, wouldn't you say? He's getting x, so he's worth x? Of course Meche is rarer, that's what I conceded at the top, that Meche is a better pitcher than Bannister (although I dont actually believe he is), but it's the grossly misproprortionate salary that makes this a stupid move, IMO. If Meche earned five times or ten times what Bannister is earning, I might grudgingly concede that might be not totally unreasonable. but once were talking twenty or thirty times, I've got to question the wisdom of allocating yor financial resources this way. No way is Meche thirty times as likely as Bannister to pitch well in 2007, or over the next five years, or ever. He just isn't, and I question the wisdom of a baseball man who says he is, and backs up that assertion with money.

Johnny Dickshot Dec 08 2006 10:18 AM

]Well, that's pretty tautological, wouldn't you say? He's getting x, so he's worth x? Sure. But isn't that how markets work? Looks like KC had to outbid a few other suitors, and probably, pay a "Kansas City sucks BHMC" premium on top of that. I'm not in any way arguing for doing that, just trying to make sense of what happened. I also think KC has tried the "10 or 15 young guys strategy" for several years now with results, as Posnanski pointed out, among the worst in bb history. Now, I know that's not necessarily a failure of the strategy, but sounds like they're trying to augment that by adding candidates with a chance of a high upside based on more than their age or price alone. Just getting Meche doesn't mean they couldn't, or wouldn't, fill the remaining 9 slots with affordable guys with a chance or no chance of making it. On a related topic, it's interesting to me that they let a high-ceiling, poor-result reliever like Burgos go then sign a $5 million man in Dotel to replace him. The implication there seems to be, a last-place club can't afford the luxury of developing a reliever but a first-place club can.

iramets Dec 08 2006 11:14 AM

Johnny Dickshot wrote: The implication there seems to be, a last-place club can't afford the luxury of developing a reliever but a first-place club can. KC's thinking does seems contrary to logic, doesn't it? The one thing Bannister has shown definitively is that he doesn't implode in a tight spot, of which KC is not too likely to have many. Burgos, OTOH, has shown that you don't really want him on the mound with the game on the line, which is likely to be a frequent occurance ot Shea. And Meche is remarkably consistent--and pretty mediocre, which calls into question why the Royals see him making significant progress--it would be one thing if he was remarkably inconsistent, cuz I could then think that he'd shown glimmers of briliance, but has he? What good will one decent starter do KC? What about him suggests he'll ever be a Pedro-type factor? It's like they're saying "Shooting at those ducks hasn't worked so well, maybe I should try aiming at my foot." Maybe, though I wouldn't try it.

Frayed Knot Dec 08 2006 11:22 AM

]Does anybody know where we could look up the VORP (value over replacement player) of guys like Meche and Lilly? Acc to the folks at BP (for 2006): Lilly = 26.4 Meche = 18.0

Frayed Knot Dec 08 2006 11:28 AM

]The one thing Bannister has shown definitively is that he doesn't implode in a tight spot, I don't think that in just 6 starts and less than 40 IPs that a pitcher can be said to have definitively shown anything.

Yancy Street Gang Dec 08 2006 11:36 AM

Well, he's shown that he can pitch well in a tight spot. But you're right, he needs to pitch more innings to show that his implosions would be infrequent.

Vic Sage Dec 08 2006 12:06 PM

besides the ridiculously small sample size, describing a finesse pitcher throwing (on average) the first 5 innings of 5 games in April for a good-hitting team as having proven that he can "pitch in a tight spot", as opposed to a wild 22-year old kid with a power arm asked to close out 9th innings for a bad team to mixed results over the course of 70+ innings, is just so... salamandarian.

Johnny Dickshot Dec 08 2006 12:17 PM

]KC's thinking does seems contrary to logic, doesn't it? The one thing Bannister has shown definitively is that he doesn't implode in a tight spot, of which KC is not too likely to have many. Burgos, OTOH, has shown that you don't really want him on the mound with the game on the line, which is likely to be a frequent occurance ot Shea. Actually, I think KC is making a distinction between relievers and starters here. They're saying: Let's gather high-potential guys in the starting rotation (Bannister if you believe in him, and Meche, who already has good stuff but hasn't realized it yet), but leave the bullpen to more reliable talents so as not to waste the occasional good efforts the starters give us and aid their potential for success when they're shaky. It's sort of like an addition to the time-honored recipe of "strong defense up the middle" as a backbone for a team that wants to contend. (KC's lack of good UTM defense nothwithstanding). Conversely, its the team with money, a strong offense and more reliable starting pitching (the Mets) that can afford the luxury of carrying a bullpenner with electric stuff but poor results. They'll have more meaningful games, yes, but also more games where they've got a lead to play with, and more potential to overcome the slip-ups that a Burgos type may have, and there's nothing but profits if and when the guy realizes his stuff. Again, I'm not advocating this as a philosophy, just examining what messages it sends about the mindsets of the teams that do the deals.

Edgy DC Dec 08 2006 12:32 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Dec 08 2006 12:40 PM

I think KC still wants to stockpile young talent in the rotation. I guess they want an anchor to the whole thing as the spend the next few years swithcing guys in and out of the rotatiation until they finnd the right combination. Jack Fischer or Mike Torrez or something, but they're paying more for more upside. That's the way I understand it, bu t I don't agree with it If anybody shouldn't overpay for mediocrity, it's KC. I think they'd have done better achieving that effect by getting Steve Trachsel or Russ Ortiz for $5-6 million over two years, or Aaron Sele or John Thompson for maybe a few dollars more. Jeff Freaking Suppan is still out there.

Vic Sage Dec 08 2006 12:37 PM

i think that should be his name from now on.

Johnny Dickshot Dec 08 2006 12:38 PM

But wouldn't you agree that they don't think Meche is mediocrity but rather, Jason Schmidt waiting to happen? A guy like Trachsel or Russ Ortiz might match Meche's contributions in a normal year but can no longer smell his potential.

Vic Sage Dec 08 2006 12:39 PM

i don't think one man smelling another man's potential is legal in Kansas City.

Edgy DC Dec 08 2006 12:47 PM

Johnny Dickshot wrote: But wouldn't you agree that they don't think Meche is mediocrity but rather, Jason Schmidt waiting to happen? A guy like Trachsel or Russ Ortiz might match Meche's contributions in a normal year but can no longer smell his potential. Sure, like I said, they're paying more for upside. I'm not so sure they should, though. Was it Frank Cashen who was so averse tto going beyound three years with pitchers? I agree with whoever it was. That sort of music should be sung to batters, who tend more toward year-to-year stability. Julio Lugo is the batting version of Meche, I guess. A guy who hadn't had a good season yet, but has shown potential and is cashing in in the right offseason mostly on speculation. But I think they're trying to be smarter than the system, and are convinced that their scouts see something the numbers don't show. I enjoy a movie where the hero shows that sort of moxie, and I'm glad I get to watch from a safe distance.