Last night when I was recapping each position for the 2015 Pirates, one thing stood out to me: Neal Huntington has gotten a ton of value this year.
I’m not talking about value in terms of finding A.J. Burnett, Francisco Liriano, or Edinson Volquez and turning them into solid pitchers. I’m not talking about finding a reliever off the street and turning him into a solid member of the bullpen. I’m not even talking about spending $17 M on two years of Russell Martin, then watching everyone around the game start to appreciate his skills.
Huntington has found value in previous years. But the value that he has found this year could be considered his masterpiece.
Let’s start with that Russell Martin move. Huntington was fortunate to land Martin when he did. He out-bid the Yankees by a few million at a time when all people could see was Martin’s low batting average. The next season, everyone started to notice the previously hidden defensive values, including pitch framing. Martin’s value exploded, and he ended up signing an $82 M guaranteed deal this off-season. The Pirates couldn’t match that, and had to try and find a replacement.
They went with Francisco Cervelli, who has managed to put up better numbers this year than Martin. Cervelli has been worth a 3.9 WAR heading into the final weekend of the season, and he is only making $987,500. That means the Pirates are paying him about $250,000 per WAR. Toronto ended up paying Martin about $2.2 M per WAR this year, although that comes with the disclaimer that Martin’s salary was only $7 M, and the heavy lifting comes later in the deal. If you use the average of Martin’s deal, the amount goes to a little over $5 M per WAR.
The Pirates did trade Justin Wilson to get Cervelli, which factors into the mix. Wilson has been worth 1.4 WAR this year, and is making $600,000. This basically means that the Pirates upgraded from Wilson to Cervelli, adding 2.5 WAR in the process, and only spending an additional $387,500 in the process. That upgrade cost them $160,000 per WAR.
Then there was the addition of Jung-ho Kang, which looked like the steal of the off-season. Kang was worth 3.9 WAR before his injury, and was making $2.5 M this year. That’s a rate of $640,000 per WAR. Even if you include his $5 M posting fee into the Pirates’ costs, and use all of that this year, you get $1.92 M per WAR, which is well below the market rate.
What makes this better is that Cervelli is under team control for the 2016 season, while Kang still has four years of control on his deal, which would have a ton of value if he’s able to return from his injuries with no major drop off in production.
Fast forward to the trade deadline, and the Pirates found another steal. With A.J. Burnett injured and a sudden replacement needed, they traded for J.A. Happ, sending Adrian Sampson out in the process. Sampson was a Grade C pitcher, giving him a trade value of $2.5 M. Happ has been worth 2.0 WAR since the trade, and has cost the Pirates about $2.38 M. All things considered, the Pirates paid about $2.44 M per WAR for Happ at the deadline. That’s amazing when you consider what the two big name rentals ended up producing for their teams.
*I estimated the prospect values for Price and Cueto at $20 M, which was around the figure I had at the deadline before I deleted my spreadsheet like an idiot. The True Cost per WAR looks at what teams actually paid for each win, factoring in the prospects they gave up and the money they took on.
The Pirates had a few other value moves at the deadline. They added Joe Blanton on waivers, picking up his remaining $2.84 M and getting 0.6 WAR. That’s $4.74 M per WAR, which isn’t great, but is a solid addition mid-season when everyone is overpaying for pitching. On the flip side, the Pirates did overpay for another reliever, landing Joakim Soria for JaCoby Jones. Soria ended up costing the Pirates a rate of $11.41 M per WAR, which is about what you’d expect to pay on an inflated seller’s market.
On the hitting side, they had a good move and a bad move. The good move was adding Michael Morse and his 0.5 WAR down the stretch. It was difficult figuring out what they paid per WAR, since the details aren’t out for what the Dodgers sent along with Morse. But what it all boils down to is that the Pirates unloaded Jose Tabata, and got a productive player in the process. That’s a win.
The poor move from a value perspective was adding Aramis Ramirez. They traded Yhonathan Barrios, who was expendable and didn’t have a big trade value. However, Ramirez has been worth a -0.2 WAR since the trade, and cost about $3 M in the process. That said, this wasn’t a bad move from a need standpoint, since the Pirates needed depth at third base with Josh Harrison and Jordy Mercer out, and they had a further need for depth when Kang went down. Ramirez was around replacement level, but the Pirates didn’t have an internal option that was close to that.
Overall, Huntington has made some outstanding moves this year. He did the impossible in replacing Russell Martin, and somehow got a better value with Cervelli than he got with Martin the first time around. He got in on the Korean market right before that market was about to take off in value, which led to an extremely affordable contract for Kang. And when every team was paying a ridiculous amount in prospects for pitching at the deadline, he managed to get one of the most productive pitchers down the stretch, and got him at a huge value.
The Pirates, as a small market team, need these types of results every year. The fact that they got so many value moves this year is a big reason why they’ve had such a successful season. The good news is that they have Kang at a low price next year, and Cervelli for one more season through arbitration. So they’ve already got a jump-start on next year’s value players.
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