Britton for Wright and $4M

[Will]

I'd rather see Brandon Erbe than Jaret Wright in our staff next year.

Trading a young reliever who helped Chris Ray anchor an otherwise godawful bullpen last year is NOT going to make this team better. Unless we go to the playoffs THIS YEAR, there was no point in making that trade.

[Frobby]

I don't like this move much, partly because I like Chris Britton. If the O's assessment of him is correct then they may get some temporary benefit from this trade. If they are worng, we've given up a young, cheap effectivle reliever for a starter who is probably no better than the guy he will replace, and who will be a free agent next year.

Oh well, I will now root for Wright to be lights out and for Britton to be terrible.

[Lucky Jim]

Replacing R-Lo with Wright IS a lateral move, but if we can move R-Lo for something better than Britton, then it's fine. I mean, this is what we've been saying, right? So we just need to be patient and see what their next step is: if it's not an improvement over Britton then we'll have a beef. Until then, it's just pessimistic speculation dressed up as analysis.

[66-70-83-??]

If you simply view this as straight up Britton for Wright trade your missing the point. Clearly Wright's function is to replace Lopez in the rotation until Penn/Olson can replace him. He's a one year stop gap who could move to the bullpen and allows us to move RLo for someone we need. Brittons' conditioning would likely have prevented him from being an O for 6 years as well as his inability to develp a second pitch.

Be careful, don't make assumptions with this FO.

I get that point.

You are missing my points.

1) Wright just isn't good enough, regardless of his salary, to trade for ONE day before he would be a Free Agent, let alone giving up something of value for.

2) This talk of Brittons conditioning and secondary pitches "smells" of spin. Even if true- is it permanent ? Look at how he performed. THere is no evidence either of those things hurt him. Heck, give me three or four more RPs with conditioning problems then. They are looking for 60-70 IP out of Britton, not 200 plus.

3) If they really wanted Wright- sign him as a FA. He would not have commanded much. He is a huge health risk. He is a SP who has NEVER pitched 200 IP in his ten year career. A career 5.07 ERA. I could understand, maybe, if he was a power pitcher. But his K/BB, K/IP is nothing special.

[scOtt]

Scott, you rather doubt Wright pitches an inning for us? Care to elaborate?

Just what I said. He may or may not. The FO has been all about getting guys that will help us now and in the future. Wright is gone after one year. I just get the feeling he is just a bargaining chip that we have picked up temporarily. He or R-Lo can be traded now because we have plenty of starters. Even Benson could be traded. Wright gives us strength and flexibility to make other trades.

[Lucky Jim]

1) Wright just isn't good enough, regardless of his salary, to trade for ONE day before he would be a Free Agent, let alone giving up something of value for.

Except that we would've ended up paying substantially more, over more years, if we waited. Now we get him for a year, cheap, with a year window to negotiate with him if he's performing under Mazzone.

As for "spin"...was it spin when the O's sent Britton back down to work on his secondary pitches and command? The conditioning is an issue (and maybe why he tailed off in August) but it's his lack of a any plus pitches other than his fastball that's the real issue I think. It's obvious the O's front-office and Mazzone think Britton's numbers were somewhat aberrational. It's probably because of this perceived "lack".

[scOtt]

BTW, I'm not convinced Wright would have become FA. Look what they did with Sheff.

[66-70-83-??]

Britton wasn't very good the second half of the year in case you didn;t notice. We probably have 4-5 guys in our system rated higher than him.

He had ONE rough spot in August. How does that qualify as a bad second half ? Besides, he was a rookie aren't they suppose to struggle sometimes ?

ERA W L Sv SvO G GS IP H R ER HR BB SO BAA

April 5.79 0 0 0 0 4 0 4.2 6 5 3 0 2 4 .286

May 0.00 0 0 0 0 7 0 9.1 5 0 0 0 2 4 .167

June 3.29 0 1 0 0 13 0 13.2 11 5 5 2 5 13 .212

July 2.57 0 0 0 1 13 0 14.0 10 4 4 1 1 11 .200

August 11.12 0 0 0 1 6 0 5.2 9 7 7 1 5 2 .375

September 1.42 0 1 1 1 9 0 6.1 5 1 1 0 2 7 .200

[Baltimoron]

I didn't mention Britton becuase I feel he should be compared to the man who replaces him in the bullpen, and not to Wright. Also, it was others who brought Lopez into the equation.

As to your very valid points, I pointed out pretty much the same things on a front page article at about mid-season.

His HR/FB rate was actually even lower in the first half, so it did begin to catch up to him. His flyball tendencies are less likely to catch up to him in Yankee Stadium than they are in OPACY.

As for his .276 BABIP being sustainable. Two things; .276 isn't necessarily that far from the norm, and him being an extreme flyball pitcher means he is more likely to have a lower BABIP.

But the relevant inquiry is what he might have been expected to do for the Orioles had he remained with them. My point was his peripheral stats do not support his extremely low 2006 HR rate, and one can fairly conclude that Chris' 2006 ERA is not reflective of what we could expect if he were to remain with the Orioles.

That his perfromance would be expected to better in Yankee stadium goes to how the Yankees might value him and what the Orioles can demand in return, but it doesn't change the fact that, absent him pitching better (maybe developing a better second pitch), he can't be expected to repeat his 2006 in the future.

I mentioned the BABIP becuase its sorta one or the other. If the argument is he improves his GB/FB rate, then one also has to assume his BABIP is likely to increase.

[Lucky Jim]

Nice post. And one that dovetails nicely, too, with the discussion of price, worth and value in one of our other threads.

It's important to take a broad, contextual look at these things.

[66-70-83-??]

Except that we would've ended up paying substantially more, over more years, if we waited. Now we get him for a year, cheap, with a year window to negotiate with him if he's performing under Mazzone.

As for "spin"...was it spin when the O's sent Britton back down to work on his secondary pitches and command? The conditioning is an issue (and maybe why he tailed off in August) but it's his lack of a any plus pitches other than his fastball that's the real issue I think. It's obvious the O's front-office and Mazzone think Britton's numbers were somewhat aberrational. It's probably because of this perceived "lack".

Wright would not have commanded much in terms of salary or years.

Mazzone thinks Brittons numbers were somewhat aberrational ? Did he say that ? Link ?

Brittons numbers are in line with his minor league performance, except a little dropoff in K/IP in majors, but that can be expected.

What about Wrights numbers ? Is his one good year the aberration ? Or the other nine years ?

[Lucky Jim]

Well, at least my point was obviously speculative. Which is more than I can say for "Wright would not have commanded more as a Free Agent." ( LINK?!!!! )

If, in fact, the front office doesn't think that Britton's numbers are aberrational, it makes little sense to make this trade. If you'd rather think that the front office simply doesn't know how to evaluate or value its players (and so assume the trade is a poor one) go right ahead. As for me, I'll go with BaltimOron's theory that the O's simply didn't see continued 2006-like success from Britton in Baltimore.

You believe what you want to. I'll go with my instincts - the O's thought that Britton's value had peaked with his 2006 numbers and so moved him for a starting pitcher (albeit a mediocre one).

I don't care if Wright's numbers are aberrational or not - the O's determined that it was a risk worth taking. Unless we're talking about a premier reliever, a league average starting pitcher is almost always more valuable than a reliever. That's the baseline.

[rosekeister]

4. I rather doubt Wright will pitch an inning for us. The FO's mantra for the last few years has been good players that we can control for several years. No renting. Wright for one year and losing Britton is diametrically opposed to that. This is absolutely the first of many moves they are planning/working on. The article said there have been several teams interested in R-Lo. This frees him (or Wright) up to do that.

This would make me very happy. If the Orioles trade Wright, maybe as part of a package, in mid-February then we all will know that the FO has more of a plan than shown so far.

My problem is that Jaret Wright has never established himself as a reliable pitcher. Rodrigo Lopez reliably gives a team 150-200 innings a year. Lopez, in the worst year of his career, pitched 7 innings 10 times last year. Wright did not pitch 7 innings even once. Regardless of what happens with Lopez, Wright is not who I would want in the rotation.

[oriolediehard]

How come people are complaining when O's made a move and at the same time people are complaining when they do nothing? Also why is so many people concerned about how much money PA is saving? First of all Britton isn't anything special and second of all a starter is far more important and valuable than a reliever. The O's have a dozen Britton calibers in their system.

[caljr]

Roch's take

http://blogs.baltimoresun.com/sports_custom_roch/2006/11/new_pitcher.html