Reds sign Wilson

[Redmachine2003]

Again, Wilson's ERA+, the stat that measures the relative strength of his ERA against a park-adjusted league average has been a below average 92 four straight seasons. Wilson hasn't improved one iota. Some of the external factors around him may make it seem that way, but it's an illusion and the Reds' purported baseball professionals should be able to spot it for what it is from a mile away.

Next you will tell me that some of the External factors are that he had the best defense with the most range and the best double play combo behind him the last 2 years. Then you will tell me that he got all the calls from the umps last year and that the wind blows into GAB more than it blows out just like Wrigley. I guess what I am trying to say is that stats lie and can be used to show what you want it to. Just as an accountant can use numbers to hide profits and loses. I work in quality and we use Data to our advantage all the time. If we don't like what stats are telling us we don't use them we use other stats to get us what we want. Just like what we do in baseball. Hey this player has an alright era and Whip but I don't think he is that good so we dig to find stats so we can say nope he isn't his VORP ( I have no idea of what this is) sucks. I agree Wilson is not an Ace but he is a good piece of the puzzle and his contract doesn't hurt us at all and he has pitched well enough to be a 12-15 game winner the last couple of years with a good bullpen and offense. If Wilson was with the Cards or the Astros the last two years I believe he would have been a 15 game winner each year.

[Raisor]

Now, I would like to see the Reds offer Jaret Wright to a three year deal for similar money. Would it be enough?

I thought we were able to convince you that Jaret Wright is not a guy that should be getting LTC from the Reds?

Wright in 2004 has "fluke season" written all over him.

[Krusty]

Wright in 2004 has "fluke season" written all over him.

Based on what? The guy showed he could win 15 games and have an ERA around 3.20 and throw the ball in the mid 90s again. His 159 strikeouts in 185+ innings is testimony to that. His shoulder woes are finally behind him.

You're going to pay alot more to sign a Clement, Perez or even Lowe.

From what you're telling me, you would have never agree to Bowden signing Paul Wilson from the Devil Rays.

[Redmachine2003]

M2 is there a pitcher the Reds have any where in their system that you like? Or does everyone have to have Nolan Ryan type of stats for you to like them? Just a couple of questions, I am not trying to be a smart butt, I am curious on your take and if you do like any of the reds pitching prospects?

[guernsey]

Jaret Wright will get more than Paul Wilson. Possibly 50% more ($6M/season).

[Redmachine2003]

I like Wright's upside and if the Reds can get him for about 4-6 mill a year jump on it.

[guernsey]

Oh, M2 likes Gardner and Pauly.

But they won't be ML winners until '07 at the earliest. '05 in the minors; maybe a cup of coffee. '06 learning to pitch in the majors. And maybe winning more games than they lose in '07.

[Krusty]

If the Reds offer Wright a three year deal with it backloaded to look like this:

2005--4.0 mil
2006--5.0 mil
2007--6.0 mil

3 year deal for 15 million.

[westofyou]

There's lots of talk about the pitchers who combined to give the Reds their worst team ERA in history. Let's look at a few of the fellows who made that happen. The Reds had nine pitchers who posted ERAs over 6.00. They logged 324 innings, or 36 nine-inning games (nearly a fourth of the schedule). Of those fine folks only Claussen figures to be back with the Reds next year. The others won't don a Reds uni in '05 (Van Poppel, White, Matthews, Reith, Sanchez, Myette, Haynes & Padilla).

The next guy on the ERA list-of-shame is Jose Acevedo, who posted a 6+ ERA as a starter, and a 0.00 ERA in 17 innings of relief. Very small sample size, but if he can't continue to cut it as a reliever, he surely won't be given the chance to duplicate his starting role. (DanO has shown a propensity to cut bait.)

Here's some of those guys.

GAMES                            G       ERA      IP       GS     H/9 IP   BR/9 IP   
1    Todd Van Poppel              48     6.09    115.1       11    10.61    13.34   
2    Gabe White                   40     6.23     39          0     9.00    10.15   
3    Jose Acevedo                 39     5.94    157.2       27    10.73    13.59   
4    Mike Matthews                35     6.30     30          0     9.30    14.70   
5    Brian Reith                  22     7.27     26          0    10.38    18.00   
6    Brandon Claussen             14     6.14     66         14    10.91    15.95   
7    Juan Padilla                 12    10.67     14.1        0    14.44    20.09   
T8   Aaron Myette                  5     8.31      4.1        0     6.23    27.00   
T8   Jimmy Haynes                  5     9.60     15          4    15.60    21.00   
10   Jesus Sanchez                 3     7.53     14.1        3    11.30    16.95

[Raisor]

Wright in 2004 has "fluke season" written all over him.

Based on what? The guy showed he could win 15 games and have an ERA around 3.20 and throw the ball in the mid 90s again. His 159 strikeouts in 185+ innings is testimony to that. His shoulder woes are finally behind him.

based on the fact that he's never been close to those numbers before. Giving a guy with his injury history and past performance a LTC for a team like the Reds is just asking for trouble.

From what you're telling me, you would have never agree to Bowden signing Paul Wilson from the Devil Rays.

Darn right. I wouldn't have done it then, and I wouldn't have done it now. His injury history indicates that he's one pitch away from being retired. Now, that's true of every pitcher, but even more so with a guy with Wilson's history.
Risk vs Reward

[guernsey]

Here are the NL starting pitchers with win shares equal to or greater than Paul Wilson last year.

C Pavano 20
L Hernandez 19
J Wright 13
A Leiter 12
O Perez 12
M Clement 11
R Ortiz 11
D Wells 10
G Rusch 9
J Lima 9
P Wilson 8
E Milton 8

How many will sign for less money than Paul did? Yes, Glendon Rusch already did, but the consensus on this board was that folks were praying he wouldn't get a Reds contract.

[Krusty]

Hate to say it but if you aren't going to sign a pitcher based on his medical history, I think that eliminates 50 percent of the pitching field.

So, if a guy gets injured and finally rebounds and has a good season, we shouldn't sign him based on he was injured in the past? Seems to me we should be kicking half of the pitchers in the Reds organization to the curb too.

Paying big bucks for pitchers is rolling the dice. The risk of injury and subpar performance is great. On the otherhand, the rewards can be great too.

If anything, a guy who rebounds to have a career year after having a career of injuries shows me that fighting attitude that I would want on my team. I'm not going to hold his past against him if he is healthy today.

[M2]

The Indians were only a game behind the Twins in late August last year, and then proceded to lose 7 or 8 straight. The AL Central is there for the taking by any one of three or four teams.

And the Reds were in first place at some point each of the past four seasons.

The $9M was high if the payroll stayed the same. The payroll is going up. Numerous sources have stated that, including the Reds.

I don't recall the Reds saying anything definitive on the matter, but I'll take your word it as I was paying next to no attention to these things for a few months. So that would mean $9M isn't high anymore, right? All I ever did was take the sum total of three pitchers who'd come off the books and say that I'd keep that in separate pile, lock box!, and make the rest of the budget balance itself (which probably would have necessitated dumping Jason LaRue if the payroll wasn't going to get any sort of bump).

So let's run through the math here. The Reds had $11M from Larkin, Castro, Wilson, Lidle, Haynes and (I expect) Riedling. Add the $7M you predicted (though the official starting total for the 2004 was $46.6M because, as we've learned, the Reds don't discount for Jr.'s deferral when they announce these figures). Anyway that's $18M to play with.

Wilson plus LaRue's raise eats up $4M.

Dunn's going to cost about $4M, that's an extra $3.5M compared to last year. Let's say Kearns and Jiminez get an extra $1.5M between them. Could be more, could be less, but that seems fair to me.

That leaves you with $9M left to spend on additional pitching (though it could be $4M less if the team's using that higher salary estimation). DanO's been pretty vocal about chasing bullpen help, so that's probably $1M-$3M out of the pie. Dunn may cost more if the team wants to sign him to an extension, based on the principle that you pay a little more up front in order to keep his salary reasonable down the road.

All tolled, that might leave you enough for a flyer on Matt Morris or Woody Williams -- better options than Lidle was last year, but essentially you've got the same club as in 2004. Again that's if the club uses your $43M starting point in getting to $50M and not the higher figure they traditionally use. Either way, I'm not seeing a lot of room for two quality pitchers in there.

[paulrichjr]

Everyone pretty much agrees that the Cory Lidle signing was a blunder for the Phils.

Here's something to keep in mind. Paul Wilson and Lidle had the exact same OPS against, .771.

I don't care what the OPS of the two were. You can look at that stat all day long and quote it but anyone who kept up with this team at all last year knows that Paul Wilson pitched much much better than Lidle did. Sure Lidle would go through streaks of 2-3 games were he pitched wonderful but Wilson was fairly solid all year and kept us in a lot of games that the bullpen later lost. I think we all need to realize that after 3 years of cheap free agent signings the contracts are certainly going up this year. Every contract that has been signed has been for a lot more than I a nd most of you expected. The big difference has been no more 7-8 year deals. The dollars have come back out of the owners wallets for 2005.

[alloverjr]

:thumbdown

Wasted cash from a team with limited resources, UNLESS DanO has a deal all but completed to deal Graves/Junior/Casey to free up additional cash. I doubt this. What scares me is that I think most fans share the same mentality as John Fay - he used "big move" and "Paul Wilson" in the same sentence.