SB Nation - Royce Ring

A Guide To Some Relevant Minor League Free Agents

Sam Page — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:00:27 -0000

In 2009, the Mets were bereft of minor league depth. It was painfully obvious looking at Buffalo's performance and it became a major issue when injuries struck. Despite what some claim, however, developing prospects is not the only way to build good farm systems. Often those fringe players that never quite breakthrough to the show are the most integral parts of a successful minor league team. So going off this list, here's some MiFA of interest:

RHP Phil Humber: I actually think Humber is a pretty bad pitcher, but need to mention him before everyone gets nostalgic. Humber was, of course, the former Mets top prospect out of Rice that was supposed to join Mike Pelfrey at the top of the Mets rotation eventually--that was, before he had Tommy John Surgery. Somehow included in the Johan Santana deal, Humber pitched really poorly for the Twins in AAA. The only real reason to bring him back would be a show of goodwill and sympathy from the Mets. Don't hold out hope for that lost potential.

IF/OF Wilson Betemit: The top-prospect-turned-super-sub Betemit probably has his best days behind him, even at age 28. He comes from the Mark DeRosa mold in that he has experience at virtually every position, but is good at none of them. And while he hasn't hit very well of late, his interesting blend of power and plate discipline and major-league track record could make him worth a flier at AAA. Personally, I might opt for better infield defense behind the Mets young developing pitchers, but few others on that list can claim being an average major league hitter over their career.

RHP Bryan Bullington: One of many infamous first round busts in the Pirate's recent draft history, this first-overall pick has some upside as a reliever. In 38 relief innings for Las Vegas last season, Bullington had a 43:7 K:BB ratio in 38.1 innings pitched. He also can be as a serviceable AAA starter, but any chance of him making the bigs is as a part of the bullpen. A good guy to have around.

LHP Brian Burres: A long-time Baltimore farm hand, Burres has the stuff to be a mid-rotation AAA guy and a #7 or 8 on an organizational depth chart. Sub-par control and a horrible 2008 with the Orioles will likely prevent him from ever earning another extended stay in the majors.

RHP R.A. Dickey:

Pros:

Went to my high school
throws the knuckleball
the only article I ever wrote for my high school newspaper was about him

Cons:

not as good as Tim Wakefield

Dickey is the rare pitcher who is seemingly improving with age. He started using the knuckleball full-time in 2007, a season in which he was the Pacific Coast League MVP. Last year he had modest success as a reliever with the Twins. Knuckleball pitchers are great because they can pitch a million innings without getting tired and because they throw the knuckleball.

3B/OF Joe Dillon: At age 33, Joe's showing some signs of decline, but with the way he's been jerked around between the majors and minors recently, I wonder whether it's genuine slowing down or just not getting settled in one place. He is one of those AAAA sluggers that makes minor league baseball fun to watch--three times in his minor league career he's had a 1000+ OPS. He's a pretty decent fielding thirdbaseman to boot. This year he was the "last man" on the Rays bench, and he could easily reprise that role with the Mets, or be big boost to the Bisons.

RHP Geoff Geary: Geary is a control-specialist reliever who has had some major league PT recently with the Astros and Phillies. He's not someone I want in the Mets bullpen, but Buffalo could use him.

OF Mitch Jones: .354, .320. Those two numbers are Mitch Jones' Isolated Power in the past two seasons. Sure, he played in a friendly home ballpark in Albuquerque, but a .651 SLG% travels. You could make an argument that Jones is better suited for a starting job on the Mets than Daniel Murphy or Jeff Francoeur.

LHP Royce Ring: Ya'll know Royce. Lefty with the funky motion. I'd take him back on a minor league deal, considering the state of the Mets' bullpen.

LHP Jon Switzer: He pitched pretty well for Buffalo out of the bullpen this year (3.85 tRA). He would be a solid re-sign.

1B Chris Shelton: Like a right-handed Chris Carter, Chris Shelton is another AAAA slugger the Bison's stagnant offense could certainly use. Last year with Tacoma, he OPSed .905 at age 29. With Chris Carter already here, however, he may be "blocked." And as you've probably suspected, I'd gladly platoon him with Murphy, Carter, or Ike Davis, if given the chance.

LHP R.J. Swindle: Of all the pitchers I've talked about so far, Swindle is easily the most desirable. He'll be just 26 next season and has fantastic minor league peripherals 9.0 K/9, 1.8 BB/9. He's got forgettable stuff: a low 80s fastball and curveball that is basically an eephus, but he's always put up great numbers and killed lefties. Chad Bradford II?

RHP Joe Nelson: The Rays signed Joe for $1MM after a fantastic '08 with the Marlins. He proved a bad investment with horrible command, but might be served well by a return to the NL East. The Mets were reportedly interested in him as a Major League piece last year, and at the very least would be a great AAA option.

C Guillermo Quiroz: A former top-50 prospect, Quiroz has evolved into a minor league catcher with a sterling defensive reputation, good pop, and poor on-base skills. Basically, he's Omir Santos. I am not even sure Omir Santos is even better than him. In fact, Omir Santos was the Orioles' AAA catcher when Quiroz was their Major League backup. That says more about how poor and ill-equipped for a starting gig Santos is, than how good Quiroz is. But if you're going to entrust Omir Santos with a roster spot, might as well keep his clone as a backup in AAA.

Call-up Day

DanUpBaby — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:00:15 -0000

by Jeff Roberson - AP

Soon, this will not be the only photograph of Troy Glaus on the AP wire.

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By the time you read this, PH/1B/break-glass-in-case-of-3B-emergency Troy Glaus might already be on the Cardinals' active roster. What's this worth? Well, how much better do you feel knowing that Troy Glaus, and not Khalil Greene, is the first pinch hitter off the bench? Much will be made of Glaus's indifferent rehab with the bat (.216/.369/.392 in AAA), but the main problem he'll face in September, whether he's fully cleared to play third or not, is that there are too many warm bodies in front of him; DeRosa, Greene, and Thurston all have some claim to the position, and while none of them is a defensive wizard it's hard to imagine a situation in which Glaus will come in as a pinch hitter and then be needed defensively.

Potentially useful analogue situation: Ryan Klesko's 2006 season, which began as a pinch-hitter at the end of September (he went 3-4 with two walks, giving him a year-end 388 OPS+) and ended in the beginning of October as designated pinch hitter against a certain Team of Destiny.I can't see La Russa forgoing "flexibility" in the bullpen and on the bench for a guy who might bat once a game, but sometimes I think he just needs a buzzword he can be excited about to make weird, out-of-character changes to the roster; if anything is going to get him excited about a pinch-hitter, it's Troy Glaus, who can Do Damage out of that nine spot with the best of them.

The other September call-ups, at least for now, seem to be the usual, inexplicable choices—the third LOOGY and the third catcher. Taken in order of likely appearance, according to Goold's article: The third LOOGY might actually influence the outcome of a game, which makes it more worrisome, if also more understandable. Royce Ring is probably better than a lot of lefty specialists who have stuck in the bigs, but that doesn't make him very good; first round Future Closer hype aside, his formidable strikeout rates didn't translate to the high minors in 2004, and they don't now.

(I hate to draw conclusions from so little data, but Ring's got weird splits for a lefty reliever. Unlike a prototypical LOOGY—Memphis teammate Charlie Manning, or Dennys Reyes—he doesn't pitch around righties at all; like prototypical LOOGYs, he gets pounded by righties. Get on it, future pitching coaches.)

The compulsion to have two backup catchers is maybe the weirdest managerial tendency ever to gain widespread currency in Major League Baseball; it is something that is both nearly universal among managers and completely uninteresting to everyone else involved in baseball. My only explanation is that the managerial equivalent of the naked-in-public dream is one where Yadier Molina and Jason LaRue collide trying to field a fly ball and you, the manager, are forced to put on the gear and replace them.

Anyway, it is what it is; if it helps La Russa sleep at night, and Bill DeWitt is willing to pay his meal money, it's not going to hurt the team. So the 28th Cardinal, due up some time after the end of the PCL season, will be Matt Pagnozzi, who is not a good enough hitter to play in the minor leagues, but who, to his credit, has been able to elevate his game in such a way that he's been equally below average at every level.

Once more into the Dave Duncan trough—the New York Times, whose reporters don't fall under the purview of Elder Duncan's press embargo, ran an interesting piece about him on Sunday. It's all worth reading, but most interesting to the VEB demographic is the first extended description I can remember of his Tipping Pitches ideology:

"You start looking at the individual numbers of a guy like Kyle Lohse," Duncan said, "and when there's hitters that have absurd numbers that they shouldn't have, that's a real indication that they know what's coming."

Duncan explained that when pitchers tipped their pitches, hitters would lay off the breaking stuff and wait to devour a fastball. That quickly gets inside the pitcher's befuddled head.

"When you have a pitcher that's afraid to throw a fastball that has a good one, that compounds your problem because you can't pitch without a fastball," Duncan said. "[...] If he has really good stuff and a variety of pitches and he's getting hammered, then there's a reason."

I wonder if Dunc reads Fangraphs? I'm being completely serious, here—one of the many unfortunate side-effects of the stats/scouts false dichotomy is that a guy like Dave Duncan, who "watches hours of film and keeps extensive charts of pitchers and opposing hitters", would probably dismiss a web site that facilitates the exact same thing out of hand.

Anyway, their pitch values illustrate, at first glance, that the opposite effect has been key to Lohse's success in St. Louis; his fastball has been a little worse than his career average (although far better than it was in 2007), but his breaking pitches, including a curveball that used to get, well, devoured, became solid positives. That said, pitches aren't thrown without context; if Duncan's gameplan is to keep hitters from "[laying] off the breaking stuff", their increased tendency to make contact on pitches outside of the strike zone, where most non-Vlad hitters make a ton of outs, might be the result.

Series Preview: San Diego Padres

Eric Stephen — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:00:22 -0000

More photos » by Chris Park - AP

Adrian Gonzalez and Scott Hairston have been the two main cogs on offense for the Padres in 2009.

Browse more photos »

The Padres have been a very up-and-down team this season, alternating hot stretches and cold stretches:

April 6-18	9-3
April 19 - May 14	4-19
May 15 - May 25	10-0
May 26 - Sunday	3-8
Overall Record	26-30

Luckily for the Dodgers, the Padres come to town on one of those cold streaks, as they have lost eight of their last 11 games, through Sunday.

One constant for the Padres has been Adrian Gonzalez, who leads the majors with 22 home runs, including 15 away from the pitcher paradise that is Petco Park. Unfortunately for Gonzalez, he happens to play the same position as the only player better than him in the National League, Albert Pujols. Gonzalez is second in the league to Pujols in Equivalent Average, Adjusted Equivalent Runs, and Adjusted Runs Above Position.

The Padres top three players by VORP were all acquired in shrewd trades by GM Kevin Towers:

Gonzalez (25.7 VORP) -- is there a better trade in the last decade than Gonzalez and Chris Young (and Terrmel Sledge) for Adam Eaton and Akinori Otsuka (and Billy Killian)?
Scott Hairston (19.4) -- cast aside by Arizona, then acquired for reliever Leo Rosales, all Hairston has done since coming to San Diego is hit (75 OPS+ with Arizona, 133 OPS+ with the Padres)
Heath Bell (10.8) -- the Padres got their replacement for closer Trevor Hoffman, along with Royce Ring, for minor league filler Jon Adkins and Ben Johnson (who has been out of baseball since 2007)

The Dodgers won't have to face Hairston, however, because he was placed on the disabled list last Wednesday, with a strained left biceps.

The Padres once again have a Tony Gwynn roaming their outfield, but this version is the son of the former Hall of Famer. Gwynn, Jr., who as a Brewer helped knock the Padres out of the playoffs in 2007, has showed an increase in patience since coming to San Diego last month, with eight walks in 55 plate appearances.

This series is a short one, the rare two-game series, and all four starting pitchers have first names that start with C:

Tuesday, 7:10pm: Tall Chris Young (4-4, 4.54 FIP) vs. Chad Billingsley (7-3, 2.79 FIP)

Wednesday, 7:10pm: Chad Gaudin (2-4, 3.95 FIP) vs. Clayton Kershaw (3-4, 3.97 FIP)

Billingsley is 6-3 with a 2.45 ERA in 11 career starts against the Padres, and has given up more than two runs against them in only two starts.

Nobody has given up more stolen bases from 2006-2009 than Young. He has allowed 119 steals in his last 91 starts, and only six would-be stealers have been caught, for an astonishing, dare I say Phillies-like 95.2% success rate. The Dodgers have won four of their last five games started by Young, although they only have five stolen bases in those five games.

Kershaw is 2-0 with a 2.70 ERA in five career starts against the Padres. He has given up a total of one run in two starts this season, yet doesn't have a win.

Gaudin is penciled in to start Wednesday, even though he turned in two innings of relief in the Padres' 18-inning marathon game Sunday against Arizona, a mere two days after his last start.

2009 Padres
Record	26-30, 3rd NL West
Runs Scored	3.95/gm (15th in NL)
wOBA	.311 (15th in NL)
Runs Allowed	4.84/gm (13th in NL)
FIP	4.30 (10th in NL)

The Dodgers have won four straight home games vs. San Diego, and nine of their last ten against the Padres at Dodger Stadium.

Season Series
April 6	Dodgers 4, Padres 1
April 7	Padres 4, Dodgers 2
April 8	Dodgers 5, Padres 2
April 9	Padres 4, Dodgers 3
April 30	Dodgers 8, Padres 5
May 1	Dodgers 1, Padres 0
May 2	Dodgers 2, Padres 1
May 3	Dodgers 7, Padres 3
Dodgers Lead 6-2

Without Hairston in the lineup, there is really nobody for the Dodgers to fear besides Adrian Gonzalez. Expect him to be walked often with men on base. The Dodgers miss Jake Peavy as well in this two-game set, and the Padres' bullpen has thrown 35.2 innings through their first six games of the June. I never like to predict a sweep, even of a two-game set, but this series is a golden opportunity for the Dodgers to feast on San Diego.

F.A.T.: LOOGYs

R.J. Anderson — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:03:10 -0000

LOOGYs are funny. Teams will overpay for something so easily found throughout the minor leagues and scrap yards. Here's the list of guys worth keeping in mind for your team that won't run you a great ransom.

John Rheinecker via mlb.mlb.com

John Rheinecker is perhaps the most interesting of the list. A former first (actually supplemental) round pick of the Oakland Athletics, Rheinecker was dealt in March of 2006 in a deal that netted the Cubs Freddie Bynum, the Athletics Juan Dominguez, and the Rangers John Koronka as well as Rheinecker. In 2006 Rheinecker was primarily used as a starter (13 of his 21 appearances), his starts would be curbed in 2007 but one thing remained: struggles against right-handed hitting. Rheinecker missed 2008 due to a surgery to remove a rib as well as arthroscopic shoulder surgery that caused him to miss almost the entirety of the season. Astoundingly good against lefties, Rheinecker is only 29 and pitches in the mid-80's, but still finds a way to get more than 9% swinging strikes.

The first of a pair of Twins on this list, Florida Atlantic University alumni Carmen Cali is a 30 year old who sits in the lower-90's. Last seen in the majors with the Twins in 2007, and the Cardinals in 2004/2005 Cali's control has abandoned him in his major league stints. He gets nearly 11% swinging strikes, and nearly 55% groundballs. Cali is at least worth a look as a non-roster invitee. Also has the best name of the list: Carmen Salvatore Cali.

Minnesota's other offering, Mariano Gomez, is 26 years old and finally reached Triple-A in 2008 after spending parts of four seasons in Double-A. The promotion only occurred after Gomez was signed by the Twins as a minor league free agent. At 6'6" Gomez is more intimidating than you'd except from a LOOGY, one not named Billy Traber at least, and got a decent amount of strikes swinging at 9.3%.

Ian Ostlund is 30 years old and a Tommy John Surgery survivor (yes, survivor). Last season he got 11% swinging strikes and had a 2.94 FIP, impressive, add in a 2.18 BB/9 and there is little to question, except his GB%. Ostlund only gets 36.55 grounders, but he didn't give up a ton of homeruns. Odds are that changes a bit in the majors, but there's something decent about him considering the swinging strikes amount.

Then there's Royce Ring, Randy Williams, and Stephen Randolph. All former major leaguers who either got raw deals or deserve another shot.

Ring didn't pitch too much for the Braves, but was decent, not nearly as good as his major league career totals indicate he could be however. The former San Diego State closer throws in the upper 80's and has pitched for three teams since 2005.

Williams made appearances with the Padres and Rockies in 2005 and throws in the low 90's. Now 32, he has bounced around the past few seasons, starting with the Mariners in 2004, then the Padres/Rockies, then the Rangers, and last season the Marlins. He gets a ton of strikes swinging, and doesn't give up many homeruns, is prone to walking a few though.

Finally we reach 34 year old Stephen Randolph, who last spent time in the majors for the Astros in 2007, and in 2003/2004 for the Diamondbacks. He too sits in the low 90's, but got the most strikes swinging of anyone else on this list last season with 15.9%, he walked quite a few (nearly 6 per nine) but gave up only 0.38 homeruns per nine despite a 38 GB%.

Obviously there's no guarantee any or all of these guys are going to have their success carry over, but let's face it, any of them on a minor league deal (MiLD for shorthand) with an invite to spring training is better than spending a few million on Joe McLefty. Why? Because Joe McLefty would've been on this list seasons ago and makes a killing on GMs who aren't willing to take a shot on guys like Carmen Cali.

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References

Minor League Splits

FanGraphs

StatCorner