In what many are calling a puzzling trade, the Baltimore Orioles have agreed to send starting pitcher Jeremy Guthrie to the Rockies for starter Jason Hammel and reliever Matt Lindstrom. I’ll leave it to the experts at Fangraphs and ESPN to debate the why. What I care about is the how — how this trade affects the fantasy values of those directly involved (Guthrie, Hammel and Lindstrom) and those indirectly impacted (we’ll get to them in a minute).
Jeremy Guthrie
Guthrie, at his best, is an innings eater. He’s pitched 200 innings in three straight seasons and 190 2/3 the year before. He has good control (career 2.68 BB/9) and finished with ERAs under 4.00 in three of his five major league seasons — all in the AL East.
Now, after five years and almost 1,000 innings of torture as a member of the Orioles, Guthrie is finally getting his chance with a new team and a new home. Unfortunately, that new home is Coors Field. Guthrie is a consistent fly ball pitcher, allowing flies 41 percent of the time for his career with a 0.99 GB:FB ratio, and he paid the price for that pitching in Camden Yards. Since becoming a full-time starting pitcher back in 2007, Guthrie has allowed 133 home runs. Only Bronson Arroyo (163), Ted Lilly (142) and James Shields (141) have allowed more.
Home runs are just a part of Guthrie’s game. His career 1.29 WHIP is on the higher side, so those homers do cost him occasionally, but his walk rate is good enough to at least limit most of the damage.
So, how will transitioning to Coors Field affect Guthrie? All is not lost. On the surface, one would think it’s a tough hand to be dealt. Over the last five years Coors Field has ranked an average of 4.2 in home run park factor of all 30 parks according to ESPN, but Camden Yards hasn’t been much better with an average rank of 4.4 during that same span (lower means less homer-friendly since first is the most homer-friendly park). And, according to the ESPN article I linked to in the intro, Colorado’s outfield defense last season was the 12th best in baseball, saving 18 more runs than the average MLB outfield defense. The Orioles outfield cost their team 23 runs last year.
For those of you who struggled in math class, that’s a 41-run difference, or about 0.253 runs per game. Guthrie started 32 games last year, so at 0.253 runs per game, that’s eight runs saved on the season. If we recalculate Guthrie’s ERA with the Rockies’ outfield defense, it drops from 4.33 to 3.98. Of course, this says nothing of any extra homers that Guthrie would have allowed last season pitching in Coors or of either team’s infield defenses or bullpens, but it’s a fun exercise to see the value of defense.
Taking these “What Ifs” a step further, what would Guthrie’s end-of-season rank have been with that new ERA? According to our PSR equation he would have jumped from 318th to 275th, and that says nothing of any further improvements he would have experienced playing in the NL where ERAs are lower and strikeout rates are higher on a yearly basis. Last season I wrote an article detailing how much of a difference changing leagues makes. Every year from 2001 to 2010, the NL had a lower average ERA than the AL (4.27 to 4.45 for the decade, 4.0% lower) and a higher average strikeout rate (6.86 to 6.49, 5.7% higher).
If we apply these rates to Guthrie’s 2011 stats and then adjust for the Colorado defense, Guthrie’s new ERA is 3.81 and his new strikeout total is 137 (up from 130). Assuming the same win total (9) and same WHIP (1.34) from last season, Guthrie’s rank improves from its original 318 to 263. For standard fantasy leagues, Guthrie goes from being an average free agent starter to one of the best free agent starters available.
Straying from the stats for a minute, Guthrie now replaces his AL East road parks (Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Rogers Centre, Tropicana Field) with a far more pitcher-friendly group (Chase Field, AT&T Park, Petco Park, Dodger Stadium).
Guthrie’s value: Increases. If I had to put a number on it, I’d say it goes up 17.3 percent (the difference between ranking 263 and 318). Yeah, it’s kind of arbitrary, but it seems like a reasonable number to me.
Jason Hammel
Hammel is more of a ground ball pitcher than Guthrie (career 1.31 GB:FB ratio) but he doesn’t have nearly the same durability. Hammel is good for around 175 innings a season, and his fatal flaw is his extreme hitability. It took a .280 BABIP last season for Hammel to post a .263 OBA. For his career, his OBA is a grotesque .280.
We already did all of the AL/NL and ballpark analysis in the section above on Guthrie, so I’m not going to rehash that here. But I will apply what we learned above to Hammel’s stats, too. Adjusting for the AL switch and the Orioles’ defense, Hammel’s 4.76 ERA last season jumps to 5.28, and that only accounts for moving to the AL, not the AL East. Again, this says nothing for a potential decrease in homers since the two parks have been so close in terms of homer-friendliness over the last few seasons.
Needless to say, I don’t like this move for Hammel. His 10.6 percent HR/FB rate isn’t really that terrible. I mean, it’s high, but it’s not ridiculously high. I don’t think we’ll see a major correction moving to Camden Yards. Sure, maybe he’ll allow a couple fewer homers, but with a career 1.47 WHIP (which has never been lower than 1.39) the homers he does allow still do a lot of damage.
Hammel’s value: Decreases. Hammel hasn’t ranked better than 284th in the last three seasons, and this move seems like more of a negative than a positive to me. I don’t see him being more than a matchups play, and with Boston, New York, Toronto and Tampa Bay popping up on the schedule almost half the time, those good matchups will be few and far between.
Matt Lindstrom
With relievers, their value comes down to opportunity. In Colorado, Lindstrom might have been the go-to guy when Huston Street inevitably gets hurt. Lindstrom has closing experience, as recently as 2010 when he saved 23 games for the Astros, but as long as both he and Street were in the Rockies’ bullpen, Street was the guy.
In Baltimore, Lindstrom has a chance to win the job. Jim Johnson and Kevin Gregg aren’t legitimate closers. That job is wide open in spring training.
Lindstrom’s value: For now, Lindstrom’s value skyrockets because at least he has a chance. If your draft was today Lindstrom would still be a nobody, but in a few short weeks he may be a great draft value.
With Hammel in and Guthrie out, the Orioles lost a guaranteed 32-34 starts and 200-plus innings and replaced it with 27-30 starts and around 175 innings. By my calculations, that leaves four or five starts and 25 innings up for grabs. And yes, the Orioles already have a patchwork rotation that will include the likes of Jake Arrieta, Wei-Yin Chen and Tsuyoshi Wada. It’s usually not a good sign when you need as much help spelling those names as I just did, and I fancy myself a good speller.
Chris Tillman, Brian Matusz, Dylan Bundy and the rest of the Orioles minor league system…you’re on notice.
Matt Belisle
Last season, Lindstrom made 10 appearances in the ninth inning, 24 appearances in the eighth inning and 21 appearances in the seventh inning and saved two games. Matt Belisle made four appearances in the ninth inning, 30 appearances in the eighth inning and 34 appearances in the seventh inning and saved zero games. With Lindstrom gone, Belisle is next in line behind an injury-prone closer.
Belisle’s value: Increases because his chances of inheriting the interim closer’s job just went up.
