AM, Penn/Andino and Eaton

[Sports Guy]

If you think I make every post based solely on numbers I've been doing a poor job of getting my points across.

Numbers are a big part of what I know about baseball. But the context of those numbers and the reasons behind them are vitally important. And the probabilities of numbers repeating or changing are just as important.

And in any case, it doesn't matter. In the grand scheme of things this is less than window dressing. This is nothing. Adam Eaton's 4 or 8 or 12 starts for the Baltimore Orioles will be long forgotten when the better pitchers arrive. Just as Twins fans have forgotten that Kyle Lohse and Scott Baker were stinking up the joint while Fransciso Liriano was being treated with kid gloves.

Sure it doesn't mean a whole lot.

Just as having a great bench doesn't mean a whole lot...How Jon Knott doesn;t mean a whole lot..How this and that don't mean a whole lot.

Its a difference of a win here or a win there(in a 70 win season) but guess what, you haven't shyed away from discussing things like this and saying why you dislike them.

[DrungoHazewood]

I've seen nothing from MacPhail to make me think the word "lazy" should ever be attached to him. A guy can have a bias or a mode of thinking you disagree with, without being "lazy."

I didn't like the Eaton acquisition, and I don't understand exactly what the thinking was that brought him here. But I doubt it's as simple as, "what the heck, he's a veteran pitcher, bring him in and hand him a spot." MacPhail is a pretty careful thinker IMO, and I'm sure he had his reasons, whether I'd agree with them or not.

Sure, I agree with all of that.

His reasons are that he has a track record and had 10 QS last year....That is what he said.

Sure, he wants to hold off on the young pitchers but guys like Pauley and Penn don't really qualify for that in this instance, so that argument can't be used.

Again, believing smoke screens and PR. You can see through that if you try.

You don't seem to differentiate between young pitchers with no stuff and middling minor league track records, and highly-rated young pitchers with great stuff. Because you believe in Tillman and Arrieta and Matusz has nothing to do with whether you believe in Pauley and Penn. That's like saying that you can't give a chance to Markakis unless you also give 300 PAs to Darnell McDonald.

[LookinUp]

His reasons are that he has a track record and had 10 QS last year....That is what he said.

Sure, he wants to hold off on the young pitchers but guys like Pauley and Penn don't really qualify for that in this instance, so that argument can't be used.

Unfortunately, Penn and Pauley make Eaton look like Cy Young. Not sure about Waters.

An aside...this thread reminds me of the late spring night I was driving through New Jersey. A caller into WIP (AM 610) was apoplectic that the Eagles hadn't addressed their third string full back. Good times were had by all.

Another aside...I hope Bergesen is called up right around when Wieters is. I always assumed Eaton would be dropped, but now I'm thinking that it could be Bass.

[Frobby]

On a bad team that is going no where, sending out a terrible vet with np upside vs sending out a younger, more talented pitcher is the wrong thing to do IMO.

I don't care if Penn or Pauley are likely to make it long term or not..They are still more likely than Eaton(for us) and that is enough for me to want them here over Eaton.

I doubt MacPhail shares your opinion that Penn or Pauley are more likely to have upside than Eaton. "Younger" doesn't always equal "more upside." Nor does the fact that Penn used to be a good minor league pitcher make him "more talented" than Eaton at this stage of his career.

Again, I'm not saying you are wrong about who has more talent and upside. I'm just saying that the fact that Penn is younger and was good in the minors in 2004-06 is not the end of the analysis when it comes to making those judgments.

[DrungoHazewood]

Sure it doesn't mean a whole lot.

Just as having a great bench doesn't mean a whole lot...How Jon Knott doesn;t mean a whole lot..How this and that don't mean a whole lot.

Its a difference of a win here or a win there(in a 70 win season) but guess what, you haven't shyed away from discussing things like this and saying why you dislike them.

So who's the Jon Knott, Ken Phelps All Star pitcher that we're unfairly keeping in the minors while Eaton slogs through a couple months? Please don't say Pauley, because his translated minor league numbers are worse than Adam Eaton's projections. Penn's were much worse.

Just going by numbers and projections Eaton wins the Pauley vs. Penn vs. Eaton comp.

[amateurfan]

Again, why do you get wrapped up in parsing things GMs say on the radio? They're saying stuff that pass the smell test to casual fans. That's about it.

What, do you expect him to come out and say "Hayden Penn was done. His stuff and his approach and his durability were for crap. I would have been happy with a fungo bat for him, because he was going to get shelled even in a mopup role. Then, when 45 pitchers got hurt, we looked around and saw Eaton was available. Our scouts saw some stuff that indicated he might be fixable enough to get us five innings a start for a few months, even though he's probably going to pretty well suck. Such is life when you have 10 good pitching prospects, all of which require a bit more minor league seasoning."

Part of MacPhail's job is PR. He's not going to go on every radio interview and tell the fans to buck up, we just signed us a sucky pitcher to get us through the next couple months.

I break down what AM says partly because it's training. Even still, the Eaton signing highlights some troubling issues:

1. It indicates pretty clearly that the FO did not design the team to win. I'm on board with the young players, and giving them their time, but I can't remember going into a season more disgruntled about a starting staff than this one. Even the bad ones of the recent past at least had hope. Even last year, I could reasonably bring myself to be interested in everyone but Trachsel. It was possible to hope that Cabrera would figure it out, and that Olson would succeed as he had in the minors. This year's completely different (except for Uehara).

2. This is a good team outside the starting staff. I understand the reasons why the Orioles did not go and sign better pitchers. There are sound, logical reasons for it, but it doesn't mean that the first half of this season is going to be more satisfying because of them. Despite understanding the reasons, knowing that a team is purposefully designed not to win is still very frustrating. At the least, it was designed knowing that the team assembled had little chance to compete. I'm more interested in Norfolk right now, but it's not terribly convenient to go down there living in Baltimore.

3. It may pass the smell test with the casual fan now, but it won't soon enough. Furthermore, how many casual fans are left? and how many pay attention to AM on the radio? Attendance and TV rating suggest that the casual Orioles fan has all but disappeared. So, who then is AM talking to? When Eaton is released in about a month (I think), what smell test will have been passed then? All it will do is expose the reasons AM stated as poor ones.

I don't think it's unreasonable to parse what AM is saying. If he didn't want his words to mean anything then he just shouldn't talk. Or, maybe he should just come up with better PR than "10 out of 16 starts were QS". That's not the only thing he could have come up with. There's no inherent limit on his creativity. When he was first hired I remember Roch expressing how AM doesn't talk much, but when he does he's honest. Maybe I allowed that to disproportionately affect my judgment of AM, which is why I have a hard time buying these sorts of statements - what if he believes what he's saying?

All in all, I don't think anyone here is saying that they think Eaton was a good signing. I see posts rationalizing it well enough, and that's fine. There were other options, though. I'm still not sure why Albers wasn't given greater opportunity in the rotation, or why he was sent down. At some point, business considerations don't weigh heavily enough (Gibbons). There are a lot of Brian Bass type pitchers. They don't need to keep him on the team.

[Mackus]

Frobby, Adam Eaton has 0 chance to help us long term. No chance Eaton is on this team next season.

So, if you have a guy with the upside of Penn, how do you justify throtting out a 31 year old guy in Eaton with no upside after this season. Who cares if Eaton helps win 3 more games? (which is very hard to argue since he is one of the worst pitchers in baseball)

Because Penn has zero upside as well. That's the difference. The people who want Eaton over Penn and Pauley want that because we've written off Penn and Pauley. I don't think those guys will help us long term, I certainly don't think the way to get them to help us long term is to throw them into a level (MLB) that they are vastly overmatched for right now. And I also don't think they'd do better than Eaton at the MLB level this season.

Eaton is better now than Penn and Pauley, in the opinions of the people who aren't furious that Eaton is here over Penn and Pauley. In addition to that, those guys also don't have any better chance than Eaton does of being a long term option here. None of those guys are long for MLB.

Luis Hernandez is young too. Nobody seemed to want to bring him back on the hopes that he could eventually become a solid MLB SS. Penn is done as a player with upside, that's why many aren't mad about losing him.

[Slappy]

A lot of electrons spilled here over what amounts to a throwaway starter to give the young guys more time to develop. Really, you have a bunch of options, none of them great. The only other option with at least some ML experience would have been Waters:

Eaton (2008) - 5.80 ERA, 1.636 WHIP, 1.1 (K+BB)/9, 53% QS (10 of 19)

Waters (2008) - 5.01 ERA, 1.531 WHIP, 0.6 (K+BB)/9, 36% QS (4 of 11)

Waters is 3 years younger and a lefty. And Eaton in the two years prior to 2008 had thrown QS% of 27% and 31%. Not sure why you don't go with Waters instead of Eaton.

As others have said though, it's not really an important argument.

[RShack]

Because Penn has zero upside as well.

I don't see how you can say that. Last year, the MiL reports said that, after a rusty beginning, he was doing way better before they cautiously shut him down at the end. You might think he won't fulfill any of his promise, but saying he's got zero upside at 24 when he hasn't had much chance to pitch lately is just goofy.

[Frobby]

Because Penn has zero upside as well. That's the difference. The people who want Eaton over Penn and Pauley want that because we've written off Penn and Pauley. I don't think those guys will help us long term, I certainly don't think the way to get them to help us long term is to throw them into a level (MLB) that they are vastly overmatched for right now. And I also don't think they'd do better than Eaton at the MLB level this season.

Eaton is better now than Penn and Pauley, in the opinions of the people who aren't furious that Eaton is here over Penn and Pauley. In addition to that, those guys also don't have any better chance than Eaton does of being a long term option here. None of those guys are long for MLB.

Luis Hernandez is young too. Nobody seemed to want to bring him back on the hopes that he could eventually become a solid MLB SS. Penn is done as a player with upside, that's why many aren't mad about losing him.

This is pretty much my position. But let's put it this way. I won't say Penn has "zero" upside, but whatever upside he has is sufficiently remote (in the judgment of the Orioles) that it doesn't outweigh the probability that Eaton is the better pitcher now.

Let's say the odds that Eaton is on the Orioles in 2010 are 0, and the odds that Penn is on the Orioles in 2010 are 2.5%. And the odds that Eaton is better than Penn right now are 75%. Do you keep the guy who is likely the worse pitcher in 2009 because of a fairly miniscule chance that he not only will be better than Eaton, but good enough to stick around next year?

Now I am not saying these are the actual odds, but if that is how the Orioles saw it, would you still criticize the decision?

[NewMarketSean]

I don't see how you can say that. Last year, the MiL reports said that, after a rusty beginning, he was doing way better before they cautiously shut him down at the end. You might think he won't fulfill any of his promise, but saying he's got zero upside at 24 when he hasn't had much chance to pitch lately is just goofy.

Agreed. And giving a BP spot to Bass and not Penn, just to see if he could get it back is another small mistake I lay at the feet of AM. People forget that Penn is only 24. If he was 26 or 27, I could see writing him off completely. But he's 24 with a string of bad luck and injuries that have stunted his development.

Now that is not taking into account any personal things like attitude, drive, etc that may have hindered Penn... but from what I know, it does give me pause to think that a guy like Bass is here, who will almost certainly be DFA'ed once Albers is able to be recalled, and Penn is not.

[amateurfan]

This is pretty much my position. But let's put it this way. I won't say Penn has "zero" upside, but whatever upside he has is sufficiently remote (in the judgment of the Orioles) that it doesn't outweigh the probability that Eaton is the better pitcher now.

Let's say the odds that Eaton is on the Orioles in 2010 are 0, and the odds that Penn is on the Orioles in 2010 are 2.5%. And the odds that Eaton is better than Penn right now are 75%. Do you keep the guy who is likely the worse pitcher in 2009 because of a fairly miniscule chance that he not only will be better than Eaton, but good enough to stick around next year?

Now I am not saying these are the actual odds, but if that is how the Orioles saw it, would you still criticize the decision?

Absolutely I would criticize them. The reason is because if I'm supposed to swallow another losing season, I want the guy who's got upside to be given a chance. I don't want to watch the guy lose when I knew he was going to lose in the first place. I'm nearly positive that every time Eaton goes out to pitch, he's giving up 11 hits/9 and almost 4BB. I know that's going to happen. I know he's going to lose almost every time out. As a fan, why bother watching that?

[amateurfan]

Agreed. And giving a BP spot to Bass and not Penn, just to see if he could get it back is another small mistake I lay at the feet of AM. People forget that Penn is only 24. If he was 26 or 27, I could see writing him off completely. But he's 24 with a string of bad luck and injuries that have stunted his development.

Now that is not taking into account any personal things like attitude, drive, etc that may have hindered Penn... but from what I know, it does give me pause to think that a guy like Bass is here, who will almost certainly be DFA'ed once Albers is able to be recalled, and Penn is not.

I agree. I also doubt very highly that Andino is on this team next year (or even after the AS game).

[Sports Guy]

Saying Penn has zero upside is a very uneducated sounding opinion.

[NewMarketSean]

I was going to start a new thread on this, but I figured I might as well post it here:

I was out of the country when Penn was dealt, so I haven't had as much time to digest the trade as everyone else.

But as I start to think about it, and see what has happened since the trade, it makes me wonder if the trade was good/bad.

As it happened, I think it was an OK trade. We needed a back-up SS and Adino was a once promising prospect who know looks like a defensive utility player. But I still value pitching more than that.

Penn could have been given Bass' spot in the bullpen. Bas smay have pitched better in ST, blah, blah, blah... but he's 27. Penn is 24 with a string of bad luck and injuries that have stymied his development. Why not have a guy like Penn come into games like yesterday's for some work? Isn't it better to have a guy with a little upside over a guy with no upside? I know hindsight is 20/20 but as it stands now, Bass will be DFA'ed when Albers is eligible to be recalled. Meanwhile Penn was traded away for what comes down to be essentially nothing.

So... unless there is some defective personality trait that Penn had that caused the O's to give up on him, I don't see why Penn could be in the Brian Bass/Lance Cormier role in 2009.

That is all.