Joe Biagini, Aaron Sanchez traded to Astros for Derek Fisher

[sule]

Horatio Sanz?

[fbalmeida]

A sign from the Gods, says this atheist.

God doesn’t believe in atheists

Nor in a world spared from the needless suffering of Shatkins trades, apparently.

[ratul]

Lol at this trade. Ha, congrats to Sanchez.

[Suga2Panda]

I've always liked Sanchez. It's unfortunate finger issues derailed his carear. Hoping the Astros figure out how to better manage it.

[TheDunc]

Did the jays really trade Sanchez, Biagini and a prospect for this guy Fisher who gets hit in the face with a routine fly ball? Seriously jays management looks inept. Well at least Fisher has some potential since hes young

I hope Sanchez goes on and becomes an Ace for the Astros

[Lateral Quicks]

Did the jays really trade Sanchez, Biagini and a prospect for this guy Fisher who gets hit in the face with a routine fly ball? Seriously jays management looks inept. Well at least Fisher has some potential since hes young

I hope Sanchez goes on and becomes an Ace for the Astros

You need to remember that we gained 42 years of control with these trades, and only gave up 14 years of control.


The fact that those 42 years are likely to be mediocre to below average play and will never be used is apparently besides the point for Shatkins. I mean, by that rationale let's trade Vlad Guerrero for 9 C prospects - boom, a net gain of +57 years of control!

[RapsFanInVA]

So we sold our starter with 1 more year of control and pretty good reliever with 3+ years of control, for 4th outfield type? Maybe at best starting LF?

Sanchez is a starter in the same way that I'd be a Formula 1 driver if you put me behind the wheel. Sure, perhaps in a technical sense, but it's going to end with a lot of crashing and burning. He's a reliever, and the Astros will use him as such, but he's also going to be an expensive reliever.

We should get you behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car. Sanchez immediately pitched 6 innings of no-hit ball in his first start...imagine what you could do!

[ratul]

God, when will fire these morons.

[agkagk]

God, when will fire these morons.

System isn’t even that good.

[GordanFreeman]

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-astros-may-have-salvaged-another-pitchers-career/
What are the chances he becomes a solid number 4 starter with the Astros?

[bluerap23]

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-astros-may-have-salvaged-another-pitchers-career/
What are the chances he becomes a solid number 4 starter with the Astros?

Pretty sure that the curveball was the cause of his injuries. If they can increase the usage of it and keep him healthy that will be impressive. I know a lot of people dislike Sanchez, but he has the tools to contribute to a winning team (even if it is as a reliever). He is worth more than a 5th outfielder.

[Schad]

Anything is possible, and the Astros have a remarkable record with tweaking pitchers, but I wouldn't class it as likely. The problem with a start in which Sanchez did well by throwing a whole lot of curveballs is that throwing a whole lot of curveballs gives him blisters.

The other issue with Sanchez is his remaining team control. Let's say that he pitches the remainder of this year and next as a reasonable fourth starter. That would be valuable for the Astros (though a reasonable fourth starter would probably be their longman once Peacock is healthy); it would present a quandary for us. We could get more in trade for that player at the deadline, sure, but not much, and Sanchez's consistency issues are such that you really wouldn't want to extend him.

[wamco]

Test

[wamco]

Here is my take on the Astros trade. I’m fine with it. Biagini is nothing. Sanchez is prob a negative value. Atkins believed the chances of Stevenson succeeding vs Fisher was with the cost of biagini and Sanchez. I agree. And fisher is ready for his chance now. Stevenson is a few years away.
This offseason Atkins needed to fill cf, 1b and a bat to rotate into dh so prob another of. He feels this fills the cf hole and does so dirt cheap. He looked at fishers profile and thinks it screams breakout if given playing time, which we can provide.
Atkins feels Sanchez is done as a starter and needs to move to the pen. However, he knows Sanchez is gonna bitch about it and doesn’t want to deal with it especially with a young team.
Arb eligible he was probably gonna make 5-6 m and really isn’t worth that in the pen esp with so many arms in aa-aaa that probably are going to land in the pen rather than a mlb rotation.
So best case scenario next year , Sanchez is a good reliever and gets traded ala Hudson and phelps for a prospect that falls 25-30 in our system.
I’d rather use the 5-6m we were going to pay him and use it towards a fa sp for 18m. I think Atkins plans the same for stroman. (I may disagree on that). But he’d spend 21m upgrading from stro and Sanchez to 2 superior sp. Throw in shoemaker borucki and Thornton and we have the start to a solid rotation with Pearson in aaa to go with an emerging lineup for a payroll of 81m including tulo

[wamco]

I think with his offensive acquisitions he was looking to simply compliment the core. If fisher, drury, teo and/or McKinney could simply put up 775 ops seasons, I think we would be ok with them

[SharoneWright]

That is an arguement that can be made.

What is unlikely is that there wasn't any better prospect value available league-wide. It's 1 thing to say "we" really like Fisher. But it's a huge gamble if the other 29 teams don't see him the same way you do. We are still at the stage where the goal of trading 2 veteran pitchers should be to acquire "assets",, not a guy who might be able to platoon with Teoscar this year. Fisher has to out-perform industry expectations right now and for this team for this trade to even approach fair value - because he is worthless on the trade market. No one is giving us futures for him. #1 Not sure the kid has it in him. #2 Who cares about this year/next year anyway.

[KL78192020]

Fisher can't even catch a ball lol trash.

[Schad]

One thing I feel needs pointing out re: Sanchez and his 2016 season. As magical and weird as that season was, he wasn't as good as his ERA would suggest.

In the past couple years, MLB has made a whole lot of data available, and one of the more invaluable classes of information concern batted balls. In general, the harder you hit a ball, the better your results will be, and balls hit on the line/in the air are better still. Looking at the batted ball data, Sanchez's 2016 season looks pretty damned lucky.

Compare a few key metrics with Sanchez and the rest of the pitching staff:

Average exit velocity (lower is better, obviously):

1 Marcus Stroman 89.9 MPH
2 Aaron Sanchez 89.6 MPH
3 J.A. Happ 88.8 MPH
4 Marco Estrada 87.4 MPH
5 R.A. Dickey 87.4 MPH

Line drive percentage (line drives are by far the most likely to end up as hits):

1 J.A. Happ 22.0 %
2 R.A. Dickey 21.9 %
3 Aaron Sanchez 20.5 %
4 Marcus Stroman 19.6 %
5 Marco Estrada 18.3 %

Infield fly percentage (infield flies almost never result in hits, and a high IFFB% can be a major suppressant of batting average on balls in play):

1 Marcus Stroman 5.5 %
2 Aaron Sanchez 7.1 %
3 J.A. Happ 9.6 %
4 R.A. Dickey 14.1 %
5 Marco Estrada 16.8 %

Ground ball rate:

1 R.A. Dickey 42.1 %
2 J.A. Happ 42.5 %
3 Marco Estrada 48.2 %
4 Aaron Sanchez 54.4 %
5 Marcus Stroman 60.1 %

Batting average on balls in play:

1 Marco Estrada .234
2 Aaron Sanchez .267
3 J.A. Happ .268
4 R.A. Dickey .279
5 Marcus Stroman .308


What stands out is the degree to which Sanchez doesn't stand out, particularly in relationship to Stroman. He had a really low BABIP, but didn't really do any of the things that tend to suppress BABIP, he got grounders at a good but not world-beating clip, and he gave up his fair share of hard contact. Finally, there's xwOBA:

xwOBA is a measure of how good a pitcher ought to have been, based on quality/angle of contact, plus the traditional stuff involving plate appearances that don't end with contact (Ks, walks, etc):

1 R.A. Dickey 0.351
2 J.A. Happ 0.322
3 Aaron Sanchez 0.316
4 Marcus Stroman 0.310
5 Marco Estrada 0.295

Average is around .320, lower is better. Combined with everything else, it does suggest that Sanchez got pretty lucky to post a 3.00 ERA...Stroman, whose ERA was more than a run worse, was probably the better pitcher. Sanchez's FIP (the other commonly-used method for determining how lucky/unlucky/defense-aided a pitcher is getting) likes him more, but still suggests that he had a generous serving of good luck.


Take all of that together, and you have a guy that was somewhat better modestly above-average and decidedly good, but definitely not elite. And that necessarily dials down exactly how long you're going to wait on someone; Sanchez's closest comparator by FIP and WAR that season? Matt Shoemaker, who we picked up for nothing, because the Angels decided it wasn't worth paying less than Sanchez will make next year to see whether he could stay healthy, and no one blinked an eye when he was non-tendered.

[phillipmike]

Sanchez is a 27 year old 0.9 fWAR pitcher in 2019 with another year of control and a career 5.9 fWAR.

Gausman is a 28 year old 1.2 fWAR pitcher in 2019 with another year of control and a career 12.7 fWAR.

Sanchez was used in a trade for Fisher and the Braves just put Gausman on waivers and lost him to the Reds for nothing a year after trading for him and O’Day. O’Day was paid a prorated 9M last season and 9M this season to not throw a pitch for the Braves to date.

Sometimes your players aren’t as good as you think.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2019&month=0&season1=2019&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=11490,14107&startdate=&enddate=

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2019&month=0&season1=2013&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=11490,14107&startdate=&enddate=

[vaff87]

Sanchez is a 27 year old 0.9 fWAR pitcher in 2019 with another year of control and a career 5.9 fWAR.

Gausman is a 28 year old 1.2 fWAR pitcher in 2019 with another year of control and a career 12.7 fWAR.

Sanchez was used in a trade for Fisher and the Braves just put Gausman on waivers and lost him to the Reds for nothing a year after trading for him and O’Day. O’Day was paid a prorated 9M last season and 9M this season to not throw a pitch for the Braves to date.

Sometimes your players aren’t as good as you think.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2019&month=0&season1=2019&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=11490,14107&startdate=&enddate=

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2019&month=0&season1=2013&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=11490,14107&startdate=&enddate=

Wait, you mean the great AA let a pitcher better than Sanchez go for free?