Lackey/Littrell/cash to STL for Kelly/Craig

While I'm not in love with the return for Lackey, my biggest complaint is the fact that this doesn't mesh well with the Lester trade; when I saw Ben got Yoenis for Lester, I was sure that the new objective was to ensure the Sox would be competitive next year instead of going into firesale/rebuilding mode. I understand Cespedes was the best deal available and whether or not he gets extended remains to be seen, but what's the point of bringing him in with an eye for next year if you're going to turn around and trade away one of the few reliable, vet starters you have? If you're trying to compete in 2015, wouldn't it make more sense to hold onto Lackey after acquiring someone like Cespedes?

I don't understand this trade. We already have a 1B and DH for next year, and about a dozen back-of-the-rotation starters... Meanwhile we lose a #2 pitcher and some salary space. Seems like this deal makes the 2015 Sox worse in every way.

All these people of the belief that Allen Craig is the equivalent of Mike Carp in the outfield are going to be pleasantly surprised. By both DRS and UZR, Craig ranks as a perfectly average outfielder in a 242 game/1,719 inning sample size. On top of that, he's shown no downward trend, actually ranking positively in the OF by both metrics this season. He will not be a liability in Fenway's left field by any means, and considering we've become accustomed to the likes of Gomes and Carp out there, he'll probably outperform the average level of defense we've seen the last few years.

Here's some 2014 footage of his ability to play the outfield:

m.mlb.com/video/?content_id=34098315&c_id=mlb&topic_id=vtp_outstandings (Yeah, he's Mike Carp)
m.mlb.com/video/topic/51231442/v32768829/stlpit-craig-makes-great-diving-catch-in-the-6th/?c_id=mlb
m.mlb.com/video/topic/51231442/v33744049/wshstl-craig-dives-in-right-takes-away-a-hit/?c_id=mlb
m.mlb.com/video/v34096837/stllad-craig-makes-an-outstanding-sliding-catch/?c_id=mlb

Also, make of this what you will, but he leads qualified MLB batters in BA with RISP from 2012-14.

The stats and the first vid are nice, but if you google "Mike Carp sliding catch" you can match the last three, right?

Manny for Jeremy Reed, the good'ol days.

Why? Honest question. I've been digging for the last hour and to be blunt, I haven't found a lot of reason for optimism where he's concerned.

As a starter, he has a very low strikeout rate combined with a high walk rate, normally a toxic combination. Last year he maintained a great ERA based primarily on an unsustainably-low BABIP with RISP - he'd put men on and then leave them there. He throws hard, but he doesn't seem to have an out pitch - his inability to miss bats worries me because it may even limit his ability to be a useful bullpen arm.

He's still young so there's some upside left in there, but I see him as a #5 starter or a middle relief arm. Don't really see how he can be any better than that long-term unless his peripherals improve significantly. On the bright side, he's paid peanuts so it doesn't hurt us financially if he washes out. So there's that.

This trade can be broken down to two halves: one (almost free) year of Lackey for four of Kelly, plus Craig (for Littrell) to make up the presumed difference.

Kelly is a young pitcher who's had a slightly below-average FIP, xFIP, and SIERA but has posted much better ERAs -- 2nd/3rd starter ERAs in fact -- because he's been tremendously better with RISP than otherwise. The easy take on that is that it's been all luck.

But I'm not so sure. It's easy to conceive of a pitcher who essentially saves what he correctly regards as his best bullets for what he perceives as the most important situations, and messes around with other, ultimately less effective approaches in less important ones. As such a pitcher matures, his RISP split is likely to even out, but it's not going to regress to his old averages; it's going to regress in the direction of his RISP numbers, as he learns to apply his most effective pitch sequences universally.

Yeah, it's kind of bullshit. To buy that, you'd need some kind of evidence that his stuff was really good enough to put up those RISP numbers, and that he actually does dick around when he thinks he can get away with it.

Well, check out these career splits by batting order position:

Split PA BA OBP SLG EqA K% BB% HRC BABIP
Bat1-2 272 .291 .355 .437 .277 .136 .077 .024 .325
Bat3-4 268 .259 .347 .345 .253 .138 .108 .010 .296
Bat5-6 254 .278 .337 .415 .264 .130 .071 .035 .299
Bat7-9 263 .289 .345 .435 .272 .171 .057 .040 .326
(This was actually no work to compile: I found it in the dictionary under "ass-backwards.")

In terms of results, in these splits he's shown dominance against the best hitters (MLB average versus 3 and 4 hitters is about .275 EqA allowed) while ... apparently dicking around when he thinks he can get away with it. In terms of approach, he's pitched elite hitters much more carefully, limiting hard contact by pitching to the edges of the zone, while he's challenged other hitters in proportion to their perceived suckiness lack of eliteness, and yielded worse results on contact the more he's challenged them.

Yeah, the weakness of contact by 3 and  4 hitters seems hard to believe given the lousy K / BB rate, but that's a decent sample size, and it's part of an overall pattern that makes a sort of sense. There's evidence here of some sort of unusual skill set ... and indeed his last BA scouting report really didn't seem to know what to make of him.

I'll always take one weird set of splits with a grain of salt, but two weird sets of splits which form a matching pair is grounds for thinking something might be real.

I therefore think there's some reason to believe he can be a top #3 starter once he learns how to pitch more intelligently (a/k/a "talks a lot to Pedro"). If that happens, then this trade is a steal.

If I had to put a probability on it, I'd say 30%. And since his floor (if healthy) is probably first-rate set-up guy (while the floor for most prospects with the same chance at his upside is below replacement level), it's a solid and very, very interesting gamble.

I now think I understand why Craig was in this trade: because he was offered and the Sox scouts really liked Kelly. What the heck to do with him is the subject for another post.

[quote author="zil" source="/post/100650/thread" timestamp="1406891
Prior to the 2013 season I read genius after genius on this board claim Victorino was nothing but a 4th OF because he didn't have a good 2012 season. What they failed to do was account for his career prior to that. Same thing with Napoli. Now, the genius's are telling me Craig is washed up because they refuse to acknowledge injury is the reason for his poor season. Stats don't tell the whole story. Cross off 2014 and tell me what kind of player he is. He played last year in the post-season when he probably shouldn't have. Now, he's paying for it.

I for one am content to wait and see how all this turns out. For the gentleman who said most of the reporters loved the trades, one name for you, Eric Gagne. At the time they said Theo just clinched the world series. WTF knows. From a pr point of view they were good moves. It gives us something to watch for the rest of the year and Cespedes is a good draw. We like the long ball.

My main concern is the pen now without Miller and this line of starters who may be good for 5 or 6 innings at best. ( They are learning.) They are going to be using the pen alot in the next few months. If history means anything, it seems you need an ace or two to win in the playoffs and ws, but from what I have read, none of these guys project as an ace. But who knows.

Still, the trades will continue to bring in the crowds and hold out hope for the future. We all wait for Godot. And when all is said and done, it is all about giving people hope, false or not, and providing bread and circuses.

In fairness, the year Theo got Gagne, they did win the World Series.

Thanks for the post... How worried should we be? Looking at his contract and his struggles, this could turn out to be a really bad deal...