Phil Watch: Extreme Ways

What better venue to analyze the Peavy trade than through the eyes of Phil.

Let's get started.

Chicago White Sox GM taking calculated gamble on Jake Peavy
Ken Williams could win big if starter comes back strong from ankle injury

Kenny Williams just made the dumbest trade in baseball history or one of the smartest.

Please note that 'dumbest' came first.

And I'm just putting this out there. Let's run this up the flagpole and see who salutes.

Could it end up somewhere in between?

I know I'm talking crazy but...

The health of Jake Peavy will be the deciding factor, and nobody has labeled him the second coming of Mark Prior.

Okay. He's 28. Read that again. He's 28.

The current ankle injury will be a non-issue long-term.

In the past, he has had issues with his elbow. As recently as last year, he missed time with a elbow strain that made some people worry that it was a precursor to the need for Tommy John surgery, but an MRI this year revealed no structural damage.

He has thrown a crapload of sliders in his career with 23% of his total pitches being of the slidey sort in his 2007 Cy Young year. That is a killer on the elbow and probably led directly to the elbow strain. But he's adjusted since the injury, re-discovering his cutter and dramatically upping his curveball rate.

Peavy has a violent delivery that naturally puts strain on the elbow. Yes. But he will compensate mainly because he has such a vast array of pitches to do so. Wait until he starts utilizing his change-up again.

He should be fine with an emphasis on should. At 28 and being one of the top five best pitchers in baseball, you take that risk, especially for what you gave up.

Tons of info out there and Phil decides to focus on a freakin' ankle injury.

So we're going to skip all the ankle talk.

...Only a guy as aggressive -- crazy? -- as Williams would deal for Peavy again after he once had said no to coming to Chicago, as Peavy did when Williams and Peavy agreed on a deal in May.

I will buy anybody reading this a newly-released designer Snuggie (now in leopard, zebra and camel) if you can find one player Kenny traded that amounted to anything (I'm so sick of typing that link).

So...crazy?...no.

Shit's changed since May for Peavy. See. Things happen around the league outside of the Chicago sports bubble. GM Kevin Towers since May has said he's not going to be adding payroll in the next three years, a slew of Padres' front office guys were fired and Peavy got kinda pissed that people said he was afraid to pitch in the American League (he's all gamer-grindy and shit from most reports). That kind of thing will change the formula for any guy.

To give up four quality pitchers -- Clayton Richard, first-rounder Aaron Poreda, Adam Russell and Class A prospect Dexter Carter -- for a guy on the disabled list ... well, that guarantees it will be a historic trade, one way or another.

WHOOOOOOOOAAAAAA!!!!!

Four quality pitchers?

C'mon.

Clayton Richard was bleech until the last two starts. You don't go from bleech to quality Major League starting pitcher in two appearances in my world. He has a ceiling of 'decent' and 'functional', but Major League starter nonetheless. Solid #4. His groundball tendencies could play quite well in Petco, though.

Aaron Poreda showed he was going to be a bit of a project at the Major League level this year. He has the body-type and velocity that warranted his place in the #1 spot of the Sox top 10 prospects in Baseball America before the 2008 season. But his secondary stuff isn't close to being ready. If he develops his slider and change, there is a possibility that Petco Park could be his friend (he's also a groundball pitcher) and he becomes a quality #2 or #3 starter, but his trajectory right now points to being a closer in the long run. I think it's safe to say Richard and Poreda are known quantities and it's something the Sox don't need right now or next year with Peavy.

Programming note: Steve Rosenbloom on the The Score right now is trying to make the point that Jarrod Washburn is a better pitcher because he can pitch right now with the ancillary argument being he won in the World Series seven years ago and Peavy lost his playoff start against the Rockies. When you want real baseball talk, you go to The Score!

Adam Russell is just a guy. A couple of decent seasons as a long reliever is his best ceiling so he doesn't enter the equation.

Dexter Carter is the most interesting chip in the puzzle. He's flat-out dominated the Pioneer (rookie ball) and South Atlantic (low-A) leagues in two seasons, both leagues where no high-upside prospects get sent (in other words, both suck, offensively). In 186 innings in his career, he's struck out a ridiculous 232, allowing only 147 hits and walking 57. The scoop on him is that he has control issues and relies on his fastball too much but there is big upside here. Given all that, he projects as a high-quality bullpen arm by multiple publications but it's going to take years.

This is important to note: No offensive prospects were touched. Neither were Danks or Floyd. And neither was Daniel Hudson, the Sox real #1 pitching prospect right now who is currently 6-0 with 1.79 ERA and an 0.85 WHIP in eight starts at Double-A Birmingham. He's 22, 6'4", 215 and has already developed secondary pitches, particularly an effective slider while possessing a ridiculous 4.89 K/BB rate. For comparison, Tim Lincecum had a 4.52 K/BB rate in the minors.

The majority of Hudson's numbers happened in the lower levels, sure. But by every account, Hudson's the much more polished prospect with the highest ceiling.

So...what do you have? The Sox traded away four guys under control for five years. True.

A closer look at their projected roles see the Sox traded away a #4 starter, two late-inning bullpen arms with possibly big upside (especially in Petco) and a throwaway. That for Jake Peavy, an ace with moderate risk but under control THROUGH HIS PRIME PITCHING YEARS (we'll get to the contract)!

With the White Sox having lost six of their last eight to fall 2 1/2 games behind the Tigers in the American League Central, and 17 games remaining against the AL East beast Yankees, Red Sox and Rays, you would think Williams would have taken Friday afternoon off. But instead he put all his faith into the Mark Buehrle- Paul Konerko- Jermaine Dye good vibes and raised the Tigers' bet with Friday's addition of left-hander Jarrod Washburn, who happens to be healthy.

I'm not saying that Phil is implying that the Sox should have got Washburn or a Washburn type. Let's just ignore the fact that Washburn is a free agent after the season and the Sox would have probably given up something like Richard and Carter for him, lost him after the season and been back to square one in acquiring a front-line starter. But...ya know. He mentioned it. It's part of the whole tapestry.

If any Sox fans are reading this, did you see this team making a realistic run for the World Series before the trade? I think there's a lot to like, especially in the future and anything can happen in the playoffs. I get that.

For this season, though, the rotation coupled with that defense and the on/off offense hasn't exactly inspired dreams of a championship this year. Best hopes were winning a crappy division and hoping against hope that multiple players find a hot streak or the foundation of youth at the same time.

And that's what you do as a fan, of course. I understand.

What does Peavy do to the rotation? Well, I'm going to avoid the "Is Buehrle an ace?" argument because it will just devolve into silliness. Oh, what the hell.

Buehrle IS an ace but not in the list of top 10 aces in the league. If you have two Buehrle-types #1 and #2 in the rotation, then you have something that equals an ace. But the Sox don't.

What Peavy does is knock everyone down the rotation list a notch, making Buehrle the best #2 in the league by far. It takes Danks from a below-average #2 to a freakin' great #3 and Floyd from an average #3 to probably the best #4 in the league.

When you have that, #5 doesn't matter AT ALL! You fill that with junk, castaways and belly lint because you now have that luxury.

For the Padres, Steven Strasburg is the goal. We're two weeks away from the signing deadline and it doesn't look like the Nationals have made any progress with him.

It's a race to the bottom, folks. If Peavy came back, he could have thrown a huge wrench into the works. Now, they have a great chance to beat the Royals in a race to be the second-worst team in the majors. Clear Peavy's salary off the books and he's signed toot-sweet. He's from San Diego, went to San Diego State, Tony Gwynn was his coach, blah, blah, blah.

You almost have to think this fact made Kenny's call made Towers drool.

Williams says the hypothetical playoff matchups motivated him when he considered how the White Sox would match up against the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers or Phillies.

"We're trying to establish that we have a place among the big boys," Williams said. "To do that you have to sometimes step out on a limb."

Mission accomplished. This wouldn't have been much more surprising if the White Sox had traded for Jay Cutler.

But what do you say, Phil? Apparently nothing. Except for a lame Cutler joke.

Williams hopes Peavy will make his White Sox debut around Sept. 1, although no one would complain about a miracle cure that would get him back earlier for the 11-game trip that begins Aug. 24 to Boston, New York, Minnesota and Wrigley Field.

Cripes. A makeup game against the Cubs is part of the equation? This deal warrants mentioning that?

Peavy, of course, is about a lot more than 2009. He's guaranteed $52 million through 2012, with an option for '13.

Phil read his contract numbers!

Here's stuff more relevant.

Coming into the season, the Sox had a little over $98 million committed. With Thome, Contreras, Dotel, Colon and MacDougal off the books after this year along with picking up Dye's option, that's a little over $20 million open.

Peavy makes $15 million next year and that goes up $1 million in each successive year until the big $22 million option in 2013 that has a $4 million buyout. He has a full no-trade for only 2010 and then it devolves into 14 blocked clubs in 2011 and 8 in 2012.

So...in the worst-case scenario, something like injury or ineffectiveness, there are plenty of outs here. But right now, the top four in the Sox rotation cost only around $35 million ($15 M for Peavy, $14 M for Buehrle, $2.75 M for Floyd with the thinking that Danks signs a multi-year deal that's somewhat backloaded and starts at around $3-4 M). Most teams would beg for that.

(Cubs swipe) The guys on the North Side have $45 million locked up for their top three in 2010.

And, for the Sox, it only increases by around $5 million in 2011 and again in 2012. Totally reasonable. With that and the fact that Alexei is locked in cheap and Quentin and Beckham under control through 2012 and 2014 respectively, payroll could/should stay under $100 million for the next three years while still having the best rotation in baseball.

Anyone would like a starting rotation with Peavy, Buehrle, John Danks and Gavin Floyd, assuming all of them -- especially Peavy -- are healthy. Peavy won't like switching his home base from Petco Park to U.S. Cellular Field but Williams isn't worried about him making the transition.

Probably more than any other player in a long time, Peavy is going to be Exhibit A for stat-types who scream about home/road splits and park factor (me included).

Let's do an exercise. Name the player's career road numbers:

Player A: 58-50, 4.00 ERA, 1.298 WHIP, 0.95 hr/9

Player B: 47-37, 3.84 ERA, 1.299 WHIP, 1.23 hr/9

Player A is Buehrle and Player B is Peavy.

We've heard buttloads of people quote the stat that Peavy's road ERA is a full run higher on the road compared to home in his career. Well, when your career home ERA is 2.8 freakin' 3, it's a bit relative, isn't it?

His career road ERA isn't going to be his overall numbers for the Sox. Pitchers throw better at home because it's where they live, it's what they know, it's where they're most comfortable. U.S. Cellular will now be that for Peavy. If healthy, worst case would probably be a half-run more in Chicago compared to Petco. That's still slightly better than Buehrle's home ERA (3.33 vs. 3.58).

And don't underestimate (Phil-ism) the fact that the Sox get to play Kansas City and Cleveland - the two worst teams in the AL for the foreseeable future - 18 times a year. On average, that's seven starts for Peavy.

Programming Note: As I write this, Clayton Richard just left the Padres-Brewers game. He threw 5 2/3 innings of two-hit, one-run ball. Guess the time it takes for a Score caller to mention that like it's relevant.

Update: I woke up at 9:45 on Sunday. It happened at 10:05 on Slap & Tickle on the Score.

Also, while it's a moderately small sample size, Peavy's record against the AL in interleague play is 8-8 with a 3.29 ERA and a 1.17 WHIP while allowing just under one hr/9 in 20 starts. Those numbers are almost identical to Josh Beckett's numbers this year (3.27 ERA, 1.15 WHIP in 21 starts).

In two years, after Peavy has 60 starts in the AL, we're gonna see what home/road splits, park factor, prime years and dollar value mean. Peavy's the poster child for all of them.

Can't. Wait.

"No," Williams said. "Jake Peavy has some of the best stuff in all of baseball. Anybody would be happy to have him."

Even on one good wheel.

(Sigh)

Continuing with Phil's fetish for White Sox prospects, we have this from Phil's Whispers. Ear to the ground, blah, blah, blah:

White Sox GM Ken Williams says people still don't understand the significance of the team's pickup of Tony Pena, and he's right. Given how they're using him mostly in non-stress situations, it's hard to see why they gave up first base prospect Brandon Allen to get him. Allen looks like a regular of the near future for the Diamondbacks, hitting .379 with eight homers in his first 18 games at Triple-A Reno after the deal. ...

Allen's a .263 career minor league hitter with a 26 % strikeout rate (bad) and an 8.5 % walk rate (more bad given his k rate) in 589 games.

But yes, by all means, let's take his performance in 18 games and call him a regular, especially given the fact that his recent promotion to Triple-A is of the Pacific Coast League variety, a league that's notoriously all-hitty/no-pitchy and half the teams play in high-altitude parks (Reno is 4,400 feet above sea level, a home park where he's OPSing 1.349 in those 18 games).

This is the league where Jake Fox was on pace to hit 57 home runs before his call-up and Joe Borchard is hitting .291 and on pace to hit 33 dingers.

Regular in the near future?

It's. All. Relative.