Pena traded for Arroyo

[Puffy]

As I have already stated, any trade that finishes with the words "and now Scott Hatteburg is the starting first baseman" is a bad, horrible, bad trade, in the interest of fairness I will quote what Buster Olney (who I am no fan of - but these are stats, so...) wrote in his blog:

"And Pena is one of those players who is better in theory than in reality. His home run ratio looks great on paper. But on a daily basis, he's been the kind of player who can kill a team, with his strikeouts and his defense (which scouts say is poor and getting worse). Opposing managers, catchers and pitchers will rush to work around the hitters in front of him to get to Pena, because of his strikeouts.

He's also played in a great offensive ballpark in Cincinnati, where he has hit .262, compared to .234 on the road, and Pena is the kind of hitter, so far in his career, that good pitchers exploit. Looked at his numbers against the best pitchers in his own division, and the results are brutal.

Versus Kerry Wood, Carlos Zambrano, Mark Prior, Andy Pettitte, Roy Oswalt, Brad Lidge, Ben Sheets, Chris Capuano, Chris Carpenter, Jason Isringhausen, Mark Mulder, Oliver Perez and Zach Duke, these are Pena's stats: 120 at-bats, 33 hits, four homers and 53 strikeouts.

Three of the homers were against lefties (two vs. Perez, one vs. Capuano). In 68 at-bats against right-handed pitchers on this list, he has 33 punchouts and one homer. These numbers suggest he was totally overmatched."

Ugly numbers - although I am still convinced he would improve with a full year of playing, these are ugly numbers.

[TRF]

Yeah, but pitching performance is harder to predict. Brett Tomko burned bright for a time too. But Arroyo is 29. I doubt he ever gives any team 220 IP in a season. But I'll take the over on Pena hitting 35+ bombs a year and OPSing above .880 and into the .900's

He's right on the verge. I'd have dealt Kearns and been happier with the trade as is. Now there is your injury history.

[SteelSD]

As I have already stated, any trade that finishes with the words "and now Scott Hatteburg is the starting first baseman" is a bad, horrible, bad trade, in the interest of fairness I will quote what Buster Olney (who I am no fan of - but these are stats, so...) wrote in his blog:

"And Pena is one of those players who is better in theory than in reality. His home run ratio looks great on paper. But on a daily basis, he's been the kind of player who can kill a team, with his strikeouts and his defense (which scouts say is poor and getting worse). Opposing managers, catchers and pitchers will rush to work around the hitters in front of him to get to Pena, because of his strikeouts.

He's also played in a great offensive ballpark in Cincinnati, where he has hit .262, compared to .234 on the road, and Pena is the kind of hitter, so far in his career, that good pitchers exploit. Looked at his numbers against the best pitchers in his own division, and the results are brutal.

Versus Kerry Wood, Carlos Zambrano, Mark Prior, Andy Pettitte, Roy Oswalt, Brad Lidge, Ben Sheets, Chris Capuano, Chris Carpenter, Jason Isringhausen, Mark Mulder, Oliver Perez and Zach Duke, these are Pena's stats: 120 at-bats, 33 hits, four homers and 53 strikeouts.

Three of the homers were against lefties (two vs. Perez, one vs. Capuano). In 68 at-bats against right-handed pitchers on this list, he has 33 punchouts and one homer. These numbers suggest he was totally overmatched."

Ugly numbers - although I am still convinced he would improve with a full year of playing, these are ugly numbers.

Buster Olney is BF with a college degree.

[Red Leader]

Buster Olney is BF with a college degree.

[TRF]

Why insult BF that way... wait. Why insult Olney that way... wait.

[Puffy]

Buster Olney is BF with a college degree.

Hey man - I was just quoting for the stat line, and I wanted to give him credit where I got it from. Buster Olney is about 300th on the list of baseball writers I respect.

[BRM]

As I have already stated, any trade that finishes with the words "and now Scott Hatteburg is the starting first baseman" is a bad, horrible, bad trade,

Blame that part on Narron, not Krivsky.

[Puffy]

Blame that part on Narron, not Krivsky.

Its both of them - if Krivsky were worth his salt he'd say, "Jerry, I want Dunn at first base for the beginning of the year as much as possible to see what we have there. You have Wise, Freel and/or Denofria to play in the outfield"

GM's have that power.

[M2]

Hey man - I was just quoting for the stat line, and I wanted to give him credit where I got it from. Buster Olney is about 300th on the list of baseball writers I respect.

And I'm guessing it's a 300-writer list.

[PuffyPig]

I'm absolutely certain that I do not want another GM with tunnel vision (you know, like the one that was just canned) who will not consider a deal for one of his chips that only includes the other team's untouchables and then trade major leaguers (Chris Reitsma, Todd Jones, Cory Lidle, Joe Randa) for two or three fringe prospects, all to "rebuild the farm system." That model got us nowhere fast. At least that is what the evidence of Bubba, Bong, the Lizard, Chubs Hancock, Justin Germano, Travis Chick, Anderson Machado, et al, has taught me.

Reistma is an apple, Lidle, Randa and Jones are oranges.

Each of the oranges was a FA to be; we were simply trying to get something while we had the chance.

[Chip R]

And I'm guessing it's a 300-writer list.

More like 250.

[M2]

Arroyo put up 29 Starts and threw 179.2 IP in 2004. During that season, Arroyo's performance didn't degenerate as the Innings piled up. Arroyo should have been nothing but primed to stretch that to 205.1 IP in 2005 as he was working his way up to it.

Sorry, but I have a hard time buying that a guy whose stamina should have been increasing suddenly ran into some wall that Aaron Harang avoided. It appears more to me that Arroyo got very BABIP lucky in April and July and it finally caught up with him in August and September. I suppose one could make a case that his K rate was negatively affected by workload, but then I'd expect to see the same thing from the year prior- especially being that 2004 was Arroyo's first big IP exposure in the Show. Didn't happen though.

IMO there's two plateaus. One is in the 150 neighborhood. The other is in the 200 IP neighborhood. 150 caught Harang. 200 caught Arroyo. Harang's a bigger boy and I think explains why 200 didn't grab him. The workload caught up to Arroyo when he had to carry a full load from the start of April.

And he did wear down a bit at the very end of 2004.

As I mentioned above, I think we have a disagreement as to how gassed Arroyo was and/or how much his tuckering out may have affected those numbers.

I saw enough of Arroyo last year to know he was gassed. Early in games he was gulping for air and rearing back for extra everytime he had to throw the ace. Worst of all he lost some bite on his stuff and far too often hitters were fouling off what should have been his out pitch.

And as noted earlier, I wouldn't be surprised if Arroyo posted a repeat of his 2005 performance. That being said, when I'm running the numbers that repeat won't be enough to affect the Win total by the amount necessary to mark that trade as a true "win" for the Reds. You like Arroyo more than I do. And that's fine. And it's not that I don't like him. I just don't like the return for the resources spent for him, particuarly given the context of where the team sits right now.

I really don't care about the 2006 win total. I judge this trade in binary. Can Arroyo deliver something in the neighborhood of 200 IP with an ERA+ of 100 or better? If he can then the Reds have added a useful sled dog for the annual pitching Iditarod. It's going to take more than Arroyo to push the club over .500, but every useful you can add, for me, is a step in the right direction. I think it's perfectly acceptable to momentarily blow holes in the lineup to get that pitching. If the Reds could emerge from the season with the bulk of a capable pitching staff in place then I think some smart GMing in the offseason could make contention in 2007 a viable goal. More likely the team will be on a 2008/9 timeframe, but the permutations start to change in the club's favor everytime a capable pitcher arrives in town.

First chairgate. Now hairgate.

Exactly. He ought to hire Greg Vaughn to press his case.

[Falls City Beer]

And he did wear down a bit at the very end of 2004.

As did Harang at the very end of 2005. Which partially explains why Harang's OPSA is little skewed--had he maintained his gas all season, he'd have been in the .715 OPSA region; as it was, he leapt up to @ .750 OPSA, ironically, up to around where Arroyo ended last year.

[M2]

As did Harang at the very end of 2005. Which partially explains why Harang's OPSA is little skewed--had he maintained his gas all season, he'd have been in the .715 OPSA region; as it was, he leapt up to @ .750 OPSA, ironically, up to around where Arroyo ended last year.

Good point. Pitching a full season is hard work and the first time you top 200 IP almost always leaves you exhausted.

[Caveat Emperor]

Yeah, but pitching performance is harder to predict. Brett Tomko burned bright for a time too. But Arroyo is 29. I doubt he ever gives any team 220 IP in a season. But I'll take the over on Pena hitting 35+ bombs a year and OPSing above .880 and into the .900's

He's right on the verge. I'd have dealt Kearns and been happier with the trade as is. Now there is your injury history.

Unless you're counting on a .600 SLG from Pena, I don't see how he's going to start posting +.900 OPSs anywhere in the near future, because there is no indication whatsoever that his walk or hit totals are going to increase sufficiently to push his OBP much higher than his career .303 level.

Everyone says Pena is on the verge, but that's pretty much contingent on him waking up tomorrow morning and figuring out the difference between a strike and a ball. His skill set doesn't include the ability to lay off bad pitches and wait for "his pitch" to drive the way good power hitters do and, as such, I don't see how you can forsee him having anything other than trouble getting pitchers to throw him hittable pitches on a consistent basis going forward. If he's going to go to the dish willing to make an Out for himself, pitchers will happily give him every opportunity by feeding him bad balls.

Pitching performance is hard to predict, but Wily Mo Pena is equally as puzzling. From where I sit, there's just as much a chance that he puts it all together as there is of him ending up another one of those guys who just didn't make the final connection. In the end, the Reds were sitting on him basically saying "Big Money, Big Money...No Whammies, No Whammies..." and hoping that they could cash in on him before he wrecked his trade value via injury or exposure as a player not likely to develop.

That's why this trade makes sense to me: the Reds traded a player when there was still value in him as a rising commodity as opposed to holding, holding, holding and eventually getting nothing in return because the star had already gone nova. I've seen way too many of those non-trades and seen exactly what it doesn't get the Reds.