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Oh, okay, so we went and read MLB Trade Rumors.  For the first time in a month or two.  And saw what you amigos was talkin' about with respect to an AGone + Beckett deal.  Sure sounds like it, doesn't it?  "Only in a franchise-transforming deal" also sounds to me like they mean "you want AGone, you're going to bail us out on Beckett or Crawford."  So, what do you think - could the M's cobble enough value out of Beckett to justify swallowing the poison pill?

Lotta youse, but not alla youse we sez, seen Beckett's velocity trend:

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That's not the end of the discussion.  But it is part of it.  

True, Felix Hernandez had a velo chart like that, not so bad or so prolonged, and it didn't matter.  Felix is his breaking pitches.  Josh Beckett is also his drop-dead gorgeous yellow hammer.  So .... where does that leave us?

We keep pitchin' yer, for $3 per month you get to sit at the feet of baseball's Aristotle.  I can't believe he sells his material so cheap.  Why would he?  Anyway, here is a fascinating little mailbag piece from July, and it's precisely in Bill's wheelhouse, taking advantage of his massive historical pattern recognition and therefore his intuition:

I know pitchers are inconsistent, so this probably isn't historic, but is there a good historical comp for what's happening to Tim Lincecum? Age 28, supposedly not injured, coming off four seasons as one of the best starting pitchers in baseball including two Cy Youngs, and suddenly he's in the running for the worst?

Asked by: Rich Dunstan

Answered: 7/28/2012

I would assume there are MANY historical comps, but let me go do a little research. ...

 

OK, there are too many comps to discuss, but. . ...I'll start with a few encouraging examples.    Steve Carlton in 1973, after winning 20 games the previous two seasons and being regarded as the best pitcher in baseball in 1972, lost 20 games and had a worse-than-league ERA; he was 28, and his best years were ahead of him.  Mickey Lolich in 1970, aged 29, lost 19 games and had an ERA over league; his best years were ahead of him.   Luis Tiant in 1968 won 21 games with a 1.60 ERA; in 1969, aged 28, he lost 20 games.   He would come back to win 18-20 games a year for years in the mid-1970s.    Dennis Eckersley in 1983, aged 28, was 8-13 with a 5.81 ERA; he would move to the bullpen and have his best years ahead of him (although Eckersley was an extremely good starting pitcher in the late 1970s.)    

 

Robin Roberts in 1956, aged 29, was almost universally regarded as the best pitcher in baseball 1950-1955; in 1956 he still won 19 games, but lost 18 and had a 4.45 ERA (league ERA 3.77).  He also would have a comeback, but it was years in the future and pitching half as many innings a year.   Bert Blyleven in 1980, aged 29, was 8-13 with an ERA over league; he would have several comebacks after that.   Ferguson Jenkins in 1973 was 14-16 with an ERA over league; he won 25 games the next season.  

 

Not all the examples are so encouraging.   Vida Blue, MVP and Cy Young Award winner in 1971, a 20-game winner three times, was 14-14 with a 5.01 ERA in 1979, aged 29.   Dwight Gooden in 1992, aged 27, was 10-13 with an ERA over league.    Waite Hoyt in 1929 was 10-12; he was 29 years old.   Sam McDowell in 1972, aged 29, had an ERA almost a full run over the league norm.   Dean Chance won the Cy Young Award in 1964 and won 20 games at least once after that, maybe twice, won only 9 games and had a high ERA at the age of 29.   Larry Dierker in 1974, aged 28, was 14-16, ERA over league; he never came back.   Wes Ferrell, a perennial 20-game winner from ages 21 to 27, at age 29 was 14-19 with a 4.90 ERA.

 

Denny McLain, Cy Young Award winner in 1968 and 1969, in 1971, aged 27, was 10-22 with an ERA 20% over the league.    Frank Tanana, regarded by some as the best pitcher in the American League in the late 70s (although he never won the Cy Young), was 4-10 at aged 28, 7-18 at aged 29, although he was reportedly healthy.   Joe Coleman Jr., a 20-game winner in 1971 and 1973, was 10-18 with a 5.55 ERA in 1975, aged 28.   Mike McCormick, Cy Young Award Winner in 1967, was ineffective in 1968, aged 29.    Dave Stieb, probably the best pitcher in the American League in the early 1980s, was 7-12 with a 4.74 ERA in 1986, aged 28.   Rube Marquard, a Hall of Fame pitcher based mostly on what he did in his youth, at aged 27 was 12-22 with an ERA over league.    Barry Zito, Cy Young Award winner in 2003, was 11-13 with a not-good ERA at age 29.  

 

Curt Simmons in 1959, Mike Witt in 1989, Tommy John in 1971, Jon Matlack in 1977, Ralph Terry in 1964, Bill Monboquette in 1966. . .

 

 

I would say that, if a pitcher is highly effective at ages 24-25, for him to be ineffective and apparently washed up at age 28 is probably more the rule than it is the exception.    I think we could probably find more examples of this than we could examples of pitchers who were highly effective at ages 24-25 and remained highly effective as they neared 30.  

Beckett just turned 32, and his ERA's have gone

• 4.00 - first half
• 6.50 - July
• 9.50 - August

Per the usual fate of such pitchers, you could just about kiss Beckett's TOR glory days g'bye.

On the other hand, his K's are 6.7 and his BB's 2.7, even this year.  Throwing 91 MPH with a Sele curve ball, he'll figure a way to get people out if he's not missing a rotator cuff.  I'm guessing that if he were a FA, he'd be paid as a #3 starter this winter, rather than getting a 1/$8M type deal as Fangraphs calculates that he would.  Somebody would probably go 3/$25 or 3/$30, we're guessing, if Beckett were a FA - maybe a little more.

So Beckett's current 3 x $13M remaining is not nearly as catastrophic, it sez here, as Fangraphs figures it to be.  Josh Beckett is Josh Beckett, and he still has that great overhand yakker.  He's not going to be paid like a chump.  

When Boston asks somebody to take Beckett's contract, the problem is not so much that you're paying him twice what he's worth.  The problem is clearing your salary docket for players who immediately become (say) the #1 and #3 salaries on your roster - simultaneously.

It's a more nuanced decision than sabers think it is.  Which is why Boston dares to put this blockbuster concept out on the marquee - there's going to be an element of street cred to it.  Not on saber streets; on GM streets.

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The Mariners, you might have heard, have exciting young pitching.  Let's count up 10 or 12 of them:  there are not only the Big Three and Erasmo, but also there is Iwakuma, there is Vargas, there is maybe Andrew Carraway and I think they're one more reliever away from maybe shifting Tom Wilhelmsen to the rotation.  Wilhelmsen has a changeup now on top of everything else.  Blake Beavan is morphing into a type of minimum-salary Bartolo Colon or Jeff Suppan.  As G-Money and J-Fro and Spec will tell you, there are legitimately interesting starters behind those 10 (ten!) also.

Under those circumstances, it's obviously not very tasty to burn a rotation slot on Beckett.  That's a given.  The question is whether it's a reasonable price to pay to acquire a lefty Edgar Martinez?

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First thing I'd ask Boston:  does Jason Vargas interest you.  You're desperate to offload Beckett, right?