Catch-all Thread: The Crisp Trade (Positives Only)

Coco Crisp can concentrate KC confidence, could Callaspo concur?

Jacobs > Gload

Crisp > Gathright

Crisp his over .400 in the playoffs and did preety good in the 2nd half of the season and for all the OBP guys out there.. in the second half of the season he had over a .390 OBP

Just imagine if we could somehow move Guillen and keep Teahen? A DJ-Crisp-Teahen OF could cover a lot of ground.

The other half of the trade
Most of discussion has been about Crisp, but let’s also look at Ramirez. No one was a bigger fan of Ramon Ramirez than me. I loved the guy and what he did. But looking at his value going forward, I think it is instructive to see what the projection systems think about Ram Ram for 2009.

ZiPS 4.02 ERA, 65 IP, 29 BB, 56 K
BJ 3.74 ERA, 67 IP, 28 BB, 62 K, 3.81 FIP
Marcel 3.86 ERA, 63 IP, 25 BB, 54 K, 3.76 FIP

Those ERA and FIP are just ok for a reliever. As Dave Cameron at Fangraphs said:

A 3.76 FIP is great for a starter, but just average for a reliever. You can get a 4.50 FIP from a replacement level reliever, and so over a projected 60 innings, you’re looking at a difference of 5 runs between Ramirez and a replacement level reliever. We have to multiply those five runs by 1.5 to account for the extra leverage of the situations he’ll likely be used in, but even still, that only makes him a +.75 win pitcher.

In a vacuum, I think Crisp will be more valuable in 2009 than Ramirez.

We got Coco Crisp for what was originally just a waiver claim.

By that same logic we got Mike Jacobs for Benito Santiago.

But I think its very cool we are adding another African-American player. I want the best players first and foremost, regardless of skin color, but I do like the idea of our franchise, which sits in what was the center of the universe for the Negro Leagues, having a significant African-American presence on the ballclub.

or KC just added depth in CF and will eliminate Joey and Mitch. An OF 4some of DDJ, Teahen, Guillen and Crisp is better than last years foursome. Crisp would add some depth for DDJ who we know will be hit with some nagging injury during the season.

I found just heard the guys name… it was yours truly Bill James i believe

Mike Mussina is retiring

I assume they will address it since it involves a (former) BoSox.

There was an article about the Rays around the all-star break about how their success wasn’t derived from any kind of massive change into superstar players, it was from a replacement of extremely bad, below replacement level players to around average ones (with the exception of Longoria). These moves have taken offensive black holes out of the lineup and replaced them with players that will probably do no worse than average and are positive to the club as long as replacements are found for nunez and ramirez.

1. Furcal
2. Dejesus
3. Aviles
4. Guillen
5. Jacobs
6. Butler
7. Gordon
8. Crisp
9. Olivo

Covelli (CoCo) Crisp

I posted that entire entry in the subject field… clever.

Can Carlos Rosa be given a shot to work out of the pen now if healthy?

with 5 walks against 3 K’s. Not a bad performance.

I just spied on the Negative Thread and it was scary….we are obviously winning because we have more comments but they are furious over there….RR has problems and Royals Nation will soon be divided, it’s Civil War!!!

let those nattering nabobs of negativism bring it on

I think the unspoken, sneaky bright side to this trade is that it opens a RP spot for TPJ!!

Scientifically, this means the trade was 67% successful! Huzzah!

The all-or-nothing home-run hitter? The speedy outfielder?

This is clearly a set-up. Moore is just making his ho look good before he cuts her loose.

I don’t understand being so negative about a trade that’s not going to blow up. It cannot possibly be as bad as that other Reliever-for-Speedy OFer trade (Howell for Gathright) because Crisp has already proven, through real Major League experience in a very good division, that he is not going to be a Joey Gathright Part II.

I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I have a paper due tomorrow – haven’t started it – and I don’t want to re-type too much, so if you want, you can read more of my musings on my blog.

Porcus woke me up today by texting me about this trade, and I haven’t stopped discussing it in like a million places. I’m glad to have this positive thread. And now I really do need to quit Coco and write my damn paper!

that dayton is playing the fools by trading for jacobs and crisp with intent to flip them later because other gm’s will overvalue counting stats or that kind of crap and he isn’t the fool getting played by the other gm?

I suppose I’ll have my charter membership in the Rob Deer Fan Club revoked, because while Coco Crisp is anything but a Three True Outcomes player, so be it, I love this deal for the Royals. This latest Dayton Moore deal’s an inspired move for a couple of reasons, not least because the price tag was pretty cheap. As nice as Ramirez was last season, consider the daisy chain of Moore’s moves here. In one of his first moves back in July of 2006, he swapped aging infielder Tony Graffanino to the Brewers for control-handicapped lefty Jorge de la Rosa. Last March, he flipped de la Rosa to the Rockies for Ramirez. He then turned Ramirez’s breakthrough year—one that looks a lot like it was as much the product of how Trey Hillman used him as it was from Ramirez’s gifts—into Crisp. That’s two years of a starting center fielder and a year of quality relief work for a problematic lefty and one of Allard Baird’s recycled playthings. Page Candace Bushnell, because that, my friends, is trading up.

Even more impressively than dealing for Mike Jacobs a few weeks back, the trade also demonstrates a Royal commitment to take on salary. However, it’s perhaps the best perfect balance of taking on salary while having an out: Crisp’s tied up at $13.75 million over the next two seasons, but 2010 is an option year for $8 million. If Crisp doesn’t earn his keep, Moore can duck that payday with a $500,000 buyout and revisit the center-field problem; if he does earn his keep, they’re set. It’s on the player to earn the payday, and I’m sure that will go over well with the Glass family.

More fundamentally, slowly but surely the Royals are starting to front something that resembles a big-league lineup. The question still remains whether it’s a good lineup—guys like Jose Guillen, Mike Jacobs, and Crisp are merely adequate hitters at their positions, after all, not good ones, and David DeJesus’ value relative to other left fielders isn’t really special, not when all left fielders put up a .276 EqA and DeJesus delivered a .285 last year, which was his age-28 season, no less. It’s worth noting, however, that the Royals are beginning to resemble a baseball team, one where you have a center fielder who can play his position and whose bat’s an asset, among other things. If Crisp delivers an OBP in the .340-.350 range, throw in some speed on the bases and Gold Glove-worthy defense in center, and people might start talking about the second coming of Willie Wilson.

It isn’t hard to add up how all of this might resemble the kind of defensive-minded adjustments that the Braves made in the winter before the ‘91 season, all to give their young pitching staff a few breaks. Certainly, an outfield alignment with DeJesus in left and Crisp in center will do fly ball-prone rotation regulars Brian Bannister, Kyle Davies, Gil Meche, and Zack Greinke all sorts of favors. (Obviously, the clunky-gloved Jacobs doesn’t really live up to a Sid Bream comparison, but work with me.) If the talk about Rafael Furcal has substance, this kind of trade is of a piece with that kind of signing.

The more I think about Coco Crisp diving around our centerfield, lowering Zack’s ERA, the more I like this trade. Our ballpark could be well suited for Crisp’s skills, and defensive outfields are the new market inefficiency. Crisp will likely hit about as well as Teahen, maybe slightly better, but with that improved defense, this is an upgrade.

I approve of this deal now…cautiously.

Crisp has a career line of .280/.331/.409

and last year in LIMITED playing time had .283/.344/.407

Teahen’s career line is .268/.332/.421

and last year .255/.313/.402

Bottom Line – Crisp was on pace for like 14 homers last year and teahen hit 15..

Crisp is one of the best defensive players in the game and DEFINATELY the best without a gold glove..

Crisp was plagued with injuries in boston.. unfortunate injuries though, not like hamstring after hamstring..

Crisp is faster and just as good baserunner as teahen and he can definately steal a lot more bags..