OT: TB trades Shields, Davis for Wil Myers + other prospects

[Randle McMurphy]

1. The Trop is not a pitching friendly environment, it suppresses home runs a little bit but Shields has better numbers at home because for variosu reasons like most pitchers he pitches better at home , you'll probably see the same trend at Kauffman stadium which actually is a pitchers stadium.

2. xFIP accounts for potential differences in defence and Shields put up a 3.25 xFIP over the last two years while throwing almost 480 innings.

He is the kind of dominant force he appeared to be in Tampa and he'll do fine in KC
http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/index. ... d-divisio/

Agreed. Shields is a damn good pitcher, one of the top 10-15 in the majors in my mind. There's no reason to think he won't do fine in KC (and probably even better due to the easier level of competition).

[Skin Blues]

Here are his 6 full seasons and the difference between his home and road ERA from 2007-2012: 0.72, 2.23, 0.87, 1.29, 0.99, 0.58. He faced the Yankees/Red Sox at home just as often as he did on the road, as well, so the fact that he's in a high run-scoring division doesn't do anything to explain the splits. The difference in defense also cannot be ignored, as he has had the benefit of by far the best defense in baseball with Tampa, which no doubt helped his ERA quite a bit (just like how it helped Jeremy Hellickson have a 3.10 ERA with his ugly 4.44 xFIP). I would expect most people to ignore these types of things, but expected a lot more from Mr Randle.

By the way, Royals fan and Baseball America co-founder Rany Jazayerli just posted this article on Grantland that echoes pretty much everything I've said (or rather, I've echoed everything he's ranted about on twitter recently): A Royal Blunder

[Randle McMurphy]

If you're playing most of your road games against elite offenses in very high scoring parks, it explains quite a bit about why you might have a higher road ERA than home ERA. Luckily for Shields, he doesn't have to go through that gauntlet anymore. He gets to face the Tigers, Indians, White Sox, and Twins with regularity. He also gets to do it in a home park that limits home runs (which is his only real issue as a pitcher). I look forward to his continued dominance and see very little reason to expect differently.

[Ado05]

If you're playing most of your road games against elite offenses in very high scoring parks, it explains quite a bit about why you might have a higher road ERA than home ERA. Luckily for Shields, he doesn't have to go through that gauntlet anymore. He gets to face the Tigers, Indians, White Sox, and Twins with regularity. He also gets to do it in a home park that limits home runs (which is his only real issue as a pitcher). I look forward to his continued dominance and see very little reason to expect differently.

Agree with you 100%. Not only is Shields playing in a way more pitcher friendly park, he is facing a way weaker division for most of the season. Not much more could be going in his favour.

[Michael Bradley]

Shields is a very good starter. I don't know why people seem to be underrating him. Six straight seasons of 200+ innings, great ratios and ERA's in the toughest division in baseball, and locked up for two more years at an affordable rate. The latter might be the reason people are hating on it for the Royals, but it's possible that they may be able to extend him if they can afford to pay him (debatable). If he pitches like he did in 2011/2012 over the next two seasons, he will be fantastic value.

Worth Myers+? Who knows. If the Royals make the playoffs in one of the next two years, then certainly. If not, and Shields bolts, then it becomes an iffy deal depending on how Myers does with the Rays. The Rays tend to develop talent very well, so I have no doubt Myers will at least be decent even if he doesn't pan out completely, but hopefully for Toronto's sake he busts.

I think this does hurt the Rays short-term, but they will still be a good team. I will never count them out. They develop not only good pitching but healthy pitching every single year, and Maddon gets more out of their offense than anyone can reasonably expect. They will be right there in the end, but may fall short. Losing Shields and Upton is no easy task to make up for. If Myers pans out, and this deal allows them to re-sign Price, then the sky is the limit for them.

[Schad]

If it's a step back, it's one that'll be accompanied by a step forward really, really soon; I'm not sure that, if you were to compare Wil Myers in 2013 + the pitcher replacing Shields vs. Shields + whoever Myers pushes out of the lineup, that you'd get more than 1-1.5 WAR difference, and it ensures that they can keep Price.

Well, they've lost a 4 WAR guy in Upton and now a 4 WAR guy in Shields. There's no way that a half season of Myers and whoever takes over Shields should be able to come close to that. So you gotta figure that at least for next season, Rays have weakened themselves substantially.

This. The Rays will have a very hard time to replace the productivity that they've lost this offseason. Giving up 2x 4 WAR players in the same offseason is going to be a big step back for them. Eventually Myers has a chance to come on and replace one of those guys but it won't be next year.

The door should be pretty wide open for us this year coming up.

They also replaced Elliot Johnson with Yunel Escobar, though, and will presumably get more than 312 PA from Longoria. Plus, they underperformed their runs for/against by 5 wins last year. Not sure that they're going to take a step back, at all.

[Randle McMurphy]

Maybe somebody should send Rany this article so he stops complaining about James Shields like he isn't actually a really good pitcher.

http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/index. ... d-divisio/

What’s more likely the problem was that Shields was pitching in tough parks on the road. His road HR/FB was well above league average (13.9%), and that was over 674.2 innings spent in the same division. The Yankees (111 home run park factor), Orioles (109), and Blue Jays (105) are all in the top five coziest parks for home runs in the league. His new division has the White Sox (112 HR PF, worst in the league), but also the Twins (92), Indians (96), and Tigers (102) playing friendlier to Shields.

It’s tough to predict offenses for a whole division, but the added games against those teams should reduce the competition level some for Shields, too. Last year, the Orioles, Blue Jays, Yankees and Red Sox scored 2,966 runs. The Tigers, White Sox, Indians, Twins scored 2,842 runs. The weighted runs created tell the same story, too. It looks like the lineups he’ll face will play friendlier, too.

In the end, moving to a home park that suppresses home runs 5% more than your old home park can’t be a bad thing

[satyr9]

So to date the losses for TB (not including the bullpen 'cause I can't be bothered to try and figure that part out) are:

Shields
Upton
Keppinger
Pena
Scott

And the adds are:

Myers
Escobar
Odorizzi
Loney
DH

You can give them more health to bring up their numbers and the DH addition will change things too, but they are weaker than last year, at least from a potential standpoint. Now, Niemann, Cobb, Archer, and Odorizzi could replace Shields better than pretty much any other team losing a pitcher of his calibre, but that still makes them much more reliant on less proven arms than at any other time since their emergence. I'm not arguing that they can't win 90+ again, but if you judged their pre-season potential this year over last you'd give last year's team more hope IMO.

If the young guys replace Shields at the level they can be expected to without turbulence, and Longoria is healthy, and Escobar and Loney are closer to their averages then their recent terribleness, and they find a cheapish 2-3WAR DH, and Jennings can play CF close to Upton's level, and Zobrist stays elite (maybe this shouldn't be on here, but as good as he is, I perpetually struggle with the idea he's a top 10 positional guy in MLB), and Myers is a solid starter in his rookie year, and the bullpen stays at last year's level, then they're a little bit better than last year's performance. Lots of those ands are quite reasonable, maybe all of them are, but something is going to give, 'cause it always does for everyone.

I think they've managed their perpetual youth rejuvenation better than any team in history, but they need to be luckier than ever before to keep real playoff contention in their grasp.

[Lateral Quicks]

They also replaced Elliot Johnson with Yunel Escobar, though, and will presumably get more than 312 PA from Longoria. Plus, they underperformed their runs for/against by 5 wins last year. Not sure that they're going to take a step back, at all.

From the realm of stunning trivia, Elliot Johnson put up a higher OPS than Yunel Escobar last year. Over the last three years, Escobar has OPS of .655, .782, and .644, respectively. At this point it appears he's a bad offensive player, though it could be that Murphy and Jays were trying to make use of his great power which messed up his swing. He's the better overall player due to his defense, but I'm not expecting Yunel to return to his .800 OPS days.

Tampa seems to always win despite an average offense. If they use some of the Shields' money for offensive upgrades, and Myers proves to be plus major league contributor this year, then they'll have improved their weak area while downgrading their starting pitching only slightly. I see them as the Jays closest competitor this year, and I wouldn't shed any tears if both the Yankees and Red Sox missed the playoffs .

[Randle McMurphy]

Escobar is way better than Johnson defensively. It's a pretty substantial upgrade. Won't be enough to make up for Shields and Upton, but it will help.

I still don't see any reason not to consider the Yankees favourites in the division (they won it last year, have kept most of the team together and should be adding Youk), but I'm not so sure I'd put Tampa above the Jays anymore.

[LBJSeizedMyID]

Ballsy trade for both teams, but it's Kansas City that assumes all the risk considering most people already assumed Shields would've been traded for prospects by the Rays.

Think Shields is underestimated by many of us - on any other team, his numbers are ace-worthy the past couple years.