Friday Rockpile: The Marquis of Sod

1. Brad Penny isn’t going to sign with Colorado, certainly not at $8 million a year likely not at all. He’s trying to rebuild his value for a better payout next winter, which makes Coors Field a destination of last resort. If you can find me a quality starter who would sign for Colorado at that price, the argument would be more valid, but I’m not seeing one. So let’s set that aside though and assume for a second that there is such a pitcher…
2. You can’t ever assume “injuries aside”. Penny is an inherent injury risk, and you always have to figure that into the cost. Marquis is much less an injury risk. So while 30 games of Penny easily beats 30 games of Marquis, 10 games of Penny plus 20 games of a starter the caliber of say 2007 Reynolds would be devastating, especially considering that you’re paying more and weren’t able to fill other slots.
3. Speaking of which, who do you get instead of Rusch or Embree for their roles at that point? The options become Greg Smith and Franklin Morales, which might not be bad, but are fairly substantial risks as unknowns and there isn’t any safety net should they get injured or prove ineffective. The cost in trade of an emergency relief fill after the season starts is substantial, you’re putting our better prospects on the line by taking this risk.
4. As for those opportunity costs you mention, I don’t see them. If Reynolds/Hirsh/Morales/Smith are substantially better than Marquis in 2009 (none project to be, but I too see that potential, the key point though is that we don’t know that they can) the Rockies should be able to trade Jason pretty quickly given that the Cubs would be picking up half his salary and making his cost more in line with his true value.

If you understand that there is not an outside rotation upgrade available to the Rockies right now, which I think is the primary hurdle you have to get over, the task is to stabilize the rotation we already have. Raise the floor if you can’t raise the ceiling, and Marquis does that.

Agreeing to disagree. I think it’s kind of weird how we have different memories of things, I think you’re referring to this Diary about me “jumping on” your disbelief that BK would be a solid contributor, and I can tell you that I wasn’t jumping on your disbelief then about that nearly as much as I am your disbelief in Marquis now. He’s not garbage, he’s had one bad season out of the last five, which is just as many as Juan Cruz has had, it’s just as many as Brad Penny has had, otherwise he’s been remarkably consistent.

Have you looked at Penny’s projection by the way? The numbers are only marginally better than Marquis’. Garland’s and Perez’s projections are even closer to Jason. While I think we could possibly sign Garland, Perez and Ben Sheets aren’t coming here. I don’t know if it’s worth it to pay $3 million more to Garland over Marquis for a quarter run difference in ERA and a downgrade in the bullpen from Embree. Over 28 starts (avg 6 IP), which would be a bad case scenario that entails Morales, Hirsh, Reynolds or Smith not stepping up, you’d be talking about less than five runs difference between them.

Cruz would cost a second round draft choice and pitch only sixty innings, but I actually have advocated going after him already this offseason. Is he a better option than Marquis? I really don’t know. I guess it depends on how confident we are in Street/Corpas, but I see signing him at that point fits essentially the same purpose in the bullpen as acquiring Marquis does for the rotation. He’s there in case the guys you already have aren’t everything you hope they could be. Given that starting pitching is typically more valuable, I could see why the Rockies would choose to prioritize insuring that side of things.

Finally, I just think the money situation is what it is. We gave up Holliday. The Padres are trying to unload Peavy. The D-backs are going to be giving up Webb next winter. It’s the same story in every town outside the big metro areas and the same arguments used by fans that think they could better run the team by racking up debt to pay salary. It will all work out if they’re one of the six teams to make the playoffs and get a little lucky in the first round. That’s not running a business, it’s gambling. Yes, some expenditure is required to return capital, some investment will be needed to make gains, but the kind of massive investment that’s required to give an NL team a solid chance for the playoffs just isn’t available unless we want to see the franchise devalue itself again like it had to do in 2003 when FSN bought their stake because ownership was under the gun. I’d rather the team continue to build a product and a brand that will be sustainable than one that sees it’s value eroding under the weight of multiple ill-conceived long term commitments.