Not So Bad

There have been a handful of Chicago Cubs games this season where Dusty Baker did not trot out a single offensive player that other teams would (or should) legitimately covet. Aside from Derek Lee, Michael Barrett, and Aramis Ramirez, the Cubs managed to build a wholly unsavory offense on a pretty substantial payroll. That said, Phil Nevin was not the major cause of Chicago’s offensive mediocrity; Neifi Perez, Cesar Izturis, Ronny Cedeno, and Juan Pierre carry that torch for him. Nevin has not been a good hitter for a first baseman or a DH, and has probably been about average for a third baseman, where his glove no longer plays. But keeping in mind the notion of true replacement level, his contributions to the Twins may still yield a little value down the stretch, and I cannot blame Terry Ryan for making a move to shake up an offense that has barely kept its head above water for the last three weeks or so.

To put the trade in perspective, I had a shockingly similar reaction to the two trades made by Minnesota teams yesterday. The Twins added Nevin, and the Vikings added Brooks Bollinger. Neither player could conceivably be a star for his new team, and the upside is something just south of league average for his position. On the other hand, they probably both stand to do more for their new contending teams than the would have done for their previous, non-contending ones. I would say that neither trade was particularly bad, and I would excuse fans for being mildly excited about either one, but I maintain that fans should not wan their teams to be in a position where they have to be excited about getting this type of player.

Keep in mind the reason that we have a low excitement threshold for Nevin- Rondell White has been horrid this season. His .200/.200/.300 act has finally worn thin with the front office, about three months after most assumed he would be cut to make room for other players. With roster expansion, there is no reason to release him now, but he will likely find himself relegated to the far end of the bench for the rest of the year. After what looked like a resurgence in July, batting .373/.407/.608 in 51 July at-bats, he came back to Earth, or whatever subterranean depths spawned this season for him. That stretch in July was mostly buoyed by a six day stretch, where he had four multi-hit games and six extra-base hits. This is the point in the column when I would usually remove a small segment of strong play to show just how bad he has been the rest of the year, but White’s cumulative line does that anyway, since he is hitting .215/.242/.308 for the season. Ugh.

So the Twins have essentially picked up Phil Nevin for the last few weeks while Jason Kubel rests his knees as much as possible and Lew Ford tries to channel whatever made him good in 2004. Statistically, one could have expected Nevin and White to have similar seasons in 2006, coming from very different backgrounds. Nevin was a corner guy white lots of power and no speed, while White was a decent outfielder who could not stay healthy. Their divergent paths have led them both the Twins, who may have an unfortunate redundancy on their hands if Nevin reverts to his AL form from his stint with the Texas Rangers. I hasten to credit the AL’s dominance for every individual statistical anomaly, and it is hard to distinguish how much Nevin’s NL improvement is due to the league factor alone, but he has definitely had two distinct seasons. In roughly equivalent playing time, Nevin hit .216/.307/.415 with Texas, and .274/.335/.497 for Chicago. The Twins could really use the latter stat line, but could probably get the former our of Ford and Kubel, no matter how badly they struggled. One has to wonder how much of a factor luck played in changing that stat line across leagues when the peripheral stats change very little: a walk every 10.6 plate appearances in Texas and every 12.5 in Chicago, and ISO of .199 in Texas and .223 in Chicago. The number that really jumps out at me is leap in BABIP, from a horrid .227 in Texas to a good-but-realistic .322 in Chicago. He has reduced his ground balls by about 4% (44.5 to 41.4), and increased his line-drives by about 1%, neither of which is all that impressive in under 200 at bats. Due to his struggles with hitting balls directly at the defense early in the year, I would suppose that the Twins can expect him to hit about .260/.320/.450. Those numbers coming from a DH would not impress anyone, and they’re probably less than a win better than what Kubel and Ford would produce, if the team was truly ready to throw in the towel on White.

When assessing a trade this late in the season, you have to also consider the intangible effect it has on the team. Philadelphia sports radio hosts love talking about how trades impact the tone or the chemistry of the locker room, as if they have a concrete idea of how that translates into on-field performance. Specifically, several of them have repeatedly asserted that adding Jeff Conine and Jamie Moyer will have more of a positive effect on the team’s psyche than any statistical influence, simply because it shows the players that ownership thinks the team can win. Did they never see the movie Major League? Honestly, though, players do not stop trying based on subliminal messages from the front office. On the other hand, there is a definite emotional and psychological effect on players when their teams add new pieces for the pennant race. The team has been seriously dragging at the plate for the last three weeks, scoring 3 runs or less in 10 of the last 19 games. With a hollowed out shell of a pitching staff, that probably will not get them into the playoffs. Adding Nevin might have the effect of “shaking things up,” changing the collective momentum, or at least the perception of momentum. Many bad sabermetricians would scoff at this notion, saying that there is no such thing as an on-field effect of psychology or chemistry. Better sabermetricians, though, would acknowledge that the effect certainly exists, but that nobody knows precisely how to quantify them just yet. Perhaps improvements in cognitive mapping with help yield better baseball stats. I do not mean to say that I know how much of a positive effect the addition of Nevin will have on the team’s psychological state, or even that the effect will necessarily be positive. I do believe that we have clear evidence that the lineup the Twins have been using is not producing enough, and adding even a modest upgrade is worth the effort, especially considering the intangible rewards that just might come with it.