Wednesday Morning Hot Links

Ladies and Gentlemen, here is your host for this morning's Hot Links: give it up for Flick Nickem!

*Crowd claps politely but nothing crazy. They just didn't want him to feel bad*

Yes that's right folks I'm back behind the keyboard ready to cook up some hot links regarding the Houston Astros baseball team for the next few months again. My """""break""""" is over, but in all actuality I was buried in things I had to do for my coursework so James let me take a vacation while I got everything smoothed out. Well, my finals are all the way done and I do not have to worry about anything school-related so hopefully that means better and more thought-out content coming up in the coming days. Remember, if you don't like me doing the posting on this website, I still post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday so you can go ahead and skip those days if you would like I won't mind or tell. 

But ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh it's Hot Links time!

~Jeff Luhnow says the team had "a very productive day" yesterday at the Winter Meetings, so it sounds like we can expect some sort of free agent news in the coming days. I hope this means we offered Bryce Harper a quarter of a billion dollars because if I had a quarter of a billion dollars I would definitely do that. Or give it to Marwin.

~And speaking of Bryce Harper, let's talk about just how likely this fantasy would be.

~Forrest Whitley messed around and threw a baseball 110 miles per hour so maybe this kid could be an alright pitcher. Scouts were so impressed that they're letting him come to Spring Training this year. 

~ICYMI from yesterday and since the offseason is still slow: here is a great piece by Chandler Rome on the Astros' 2-sport athlete Kyle Tucker. Speaking of the kid, he is the main topic on this week's MLB Pipeline Podcast so we should all head on over and check it out.

~Last evening, Alex Bregman got #wet.

~The Rangers and Astros will be the only teams in 2019 to only have a 3 day All-Star break which is absolutely fine by me but I will still miss them dearly and three days is still a long time for my heart to wait.

~I hope we aren't banning the shift.

~Tony Kemp is making pure-hearted content on Twitter dot com again.

~They keep grooming Aledmys Diaz to be the next Marwin Gonzalez which is weird because we don't need two super utility players on the team. What a silly org lol

~The animal that was initially believed to be rat which turned out to be a ferret is actually a weasel. Also it appears as if there is a Ferret Association of Connecticut, which really brightened my day.

~"Hawaiian Monk Seals Keep Getting Eels Stuck Up Their Snouts, Nobody 'NOSE' Why." I have nothing to add.

On This Day in Baseball History

-In 1930, the rules committee created the ground rule double. Originally, if a ball bounced into the stands, it was ruled as a home run.

-In 1933, arguably the trade with the best names from top to bottom, the A's traded Lefty Grove, Rube Wallberg, and Max Bishop to Boston for Bob Kline and Rabbit Warstler.

-In 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 4 to 3 to not review Wisconsin's suit to block the Milwaukee Braves move to Atlanta.

-In 2007, the Astros traded to acquire Miguel Tejada from Baltimore in exchange for Matt Albers, Troy Patton, Luke Scott, Dennis Sarfate, and Michael Costanzo.

-In 2009, the Astros made their free agent splash on the same day, this time for pitcher Brandon Lyon.

Tuesday Morning Link Dump:

Here's what you need to know in Astrosdom for Tuesday morning:

*JetHawks manager Rodney Linares says Carlos Correa has been ready for Double-A for a couple of weeks, as Evan Drellich checks out Lancaster.

*The Astros traded Raul Valdes to the Blue Jays yesterday for a PTBNL, or straight cash homey.

*Miguel Tejada signed a minor-league deal with the Marlins. Because of his positive amphetamine test, he won't be eligible to play until June 10th.

*Luis Cruz dominated for Corpus last night.

*Ben Zobrist and Hunter Pence get drafted early in Keith Law's Insider-Only 2004 Re-Draft.

Astros underserving MVP votes

In working on a different post that I ended up scrapping, I came across something interesting. In 1969, Houston catcher Johnny Edwards received an MVP vote. Now, I'm sure it was from some Astros beat writer who was just throwing one of his favorites a bone (you'll see why later), but it got me thinking...how many unworthy Houston players have received award votes? Let's waste some time and find out. Baseball Reference explains that a WAR under 2 is below starter level, so that will be my cutoff.

1969 - Johnny Edwards (1 pt, t-36th) appeared in the voting. Edwards was an All-Star with Cincinnati from 1963-1965, but his best years were behind him by '69. Edwards hit .232/.306/.333 with six home runs, good for just 1.6 WAR.

1973 - Lee May (9 pts, 19th). May hit .270/.310/.479 with 28 HR and 105 RBI, but totaled just  1.5 WAR, due to his well below average defense.

1980 - Joe Niekro (3 pts, 19th) is a surprising inclusion here, as he looked to have a good year on the surface. Niekro went 20-12 with a 3.55 ERA, for a surprisingly low 0.9 WAR. That ERA was actually 7% below league average that season, though. He did add another 0.9 WAR at the plate, though, after hitting .275 with 5 doubles and 10 RBI that year.

1995 - Derek Bell (12 pts, 14th) barely makes the cutoff here due to missing the last month of the season. Bell hit .334/.385/.442 in 112 games with 8 HR and 27 SB, totaling 1.9 WAR.

2008 - Jose Valverde (3 pts, t-24th) makes the list, mainly because relief pitchers WAR is usually lower due to the limited number of innings they pitch. Valverde had 44 saves with a 3.38 ERA, 1.3 WAR.

2009 - Miguel Tejeda (3 pts, t-23rd). Tejeda hit .313/.340/.455 while tied for the league lead in doubles with 46. His degrading defense dragged him back down, though, as he ended up with 1.9 WAR.

Catching up with the five guys we gave to Baltimore for two seasons of Tejada

You remember it well. I was driving across Arkansas, going home for an extended Christmas break, listening to ESPN Radio when it came out that the Astros had traded five players to the Orioles for Miguel Tejada. Of course, the next day the Mitchell Report came out, which implicated Tejada's use of PEDs. What happened to those five other guys?

Dennis Sarfate: Cut from Major-League camp and will likely open 2010 in Triple-A
Mike Costanzo: Released today
Troy Patton: Assigned to Triple-A after having shoulder surgery in 2008.
Matt Albers: May make the Opening Day roster out of the bullpen
Luke Scott: The most successful of the group so far, he has hit .258/.338/.479 with 48 homers and 142 RBI in 276 games for the Orioles.

Did it work out? Well, kind of. The Astros got an All-Star shortstop for two seasons, while the Orioles just got him back. The off-season that MacPhail had in 2007 - trading Tejada for five players, and Bedard to Seattle for six players (including George Sherill and Adam Jones) - should rank as one of the all-time fleecings in recent GM history. Losing Luke Scott paved the way for Hunter Pence to make the team, but so far, it hasn't been as lopsided as it may seem.

What Tejada said to Manzella

In Bernardo Fallas' Notes column we get a glimpse at what Miguel Tejada taught Tommy Manzella last September, when Manzella was doing all that sitting around.

Manzella:
“We talked about how important it is for you to be out there every day. He said that, obviously, it is a long season and your body is going to bark at you a little bit and tell you that you need a day off. But he said some of those days, when he felt like that, that's when he played his best games.

“He said it is really important to pace yourself — it's a long season — but understand that you're needed on the field every day. And when you're less than 100 percent, you make sure you keep the same kind of approach in a game because you don't want anyone around you to know whether you're feeling good that day or feeling a little stiff.”

I guess "Avoid Jeremy Schaap" was just a given.

A long note on Plate Discipline

As I feel like I'm slacking off a little bit, I thought I'd try to do something to redeem myself by taking a significant amount of time to look at the plate discipline of our chosen team. All data is courtesy of FanGraphs.

A note: I set the minimum PAs at 200. This way we don't take Chris Johnson, who was swinging just to get a little exercise, out of context.

A Glossary:
O-Swing%: Percentage of pitches outside the strike zone resulting in a swing
O-Contact%: Pitch% outside of the strike zone in which a batter made contact
Z-Swing%: Pitch% inside the strike zone resulting in a swing
Z-Swing%: Pitch% inside the strike zone resulting in contact
Swing%: Total percentage of pitches resulting in a swing
Contact%: Total percentage of pitches in which a batter made contact

Name	O-Swing%	O-Contact%	Z-Swing%	Z-Contact%	Swing%	Contact%
Berkman	19.9%	61.2%	68.1%	85.3%	41.8%	79.1%
Blum	28.1%	62.2%	67.7%	90.0%	46.4%	80.9%
Bourn	20.3%	56.6%	60.6%	86.5%	40.3%	78.9%
Keppinger	18.7%	82.5%	56.5%	94.1%	38.3%	91.4%
Lee	24.4%	70.7%	69.5%	93.8%	46.6%	87.7%
Matsui	28.6%	72.8%	65.1%	90.3%	46.4%	84.8%
Pence	26.6%	60.1%	70.8%	83.4%	47.9%	76.7%
Pudge	38.9%	57.8%	75.8%	85.1%	57.5%	76.0%
Tejada	32.5%	76.1%	71.9%	93.6%	52.7%	88.4%

A few things to note here:

-The two players who would swing at the highest percentage of pitches outside of the strike zone (Pudge - 38.9% and Tejada - 32.5%) are gone. And Blum, with the 4th-highest percentage, has been reduced to a utility role.
-Jeff Keppinger is incredibly selective, but we already knew that. That said, he had the highest percentage of contact with pitches outside of the strike zone.
-Hunter Pence has the lowest rate of contact on the team (76.7%)
-I didn't list it in the above table, but Lance Berkman saw the fewest percentage of pitches in the strike zone (45.4%). Next was Geoff Blum (?) (46.2%).

It's an appropriate time to list Pedro Feliz in here, and if we could, we'd put Tommy Manzella and Towles/Quintero. But we can't. Sample size is too small. So Happy Pete it is (with Blum relisted for comparative purposes):

Name	O-Swing%	O-Contact%	Z-Swing%	Z-Contact%	Swing%	Contact%
Feliz	29.7%	67.1%	63.0%	92.3%	47.2%	84.8%
Blum	28.1%	62.2%	67.7%	90.0%	46.4%	80.9%

So. Feliz swings at a slightly higher percentage of pitches outside the strike zone, but connects more often. He also is more selective inside the strike zone than Blum, but also connects more often. Feliz also swings more often, and makes more contact. Yay.

For a note of qualification, this is just a look at plate discipline, not batting average, slugging percentage, ball placement, etc. We're just looking at who pounces on strikes, and who lays off balls. (snickering).

Thoughts?

Fallas, coming through!

Bernardo Fallas has an interesting blog post about the Astros' negotiations with Tejada during the 2009 season:

The fact is that at some point last year, the Astros held talks with Tejada about having him stick around for another season - at third base. Tejada, however, wanted the type of job security only a multiyear deal provides. So he and the team said their goodbyes and went their separate ways.

Fallas notes that he's not sure if talks got far enough to the point of exchanging dollars, but:
I am willing to bet the Astros' offer would have been, at the very least, comparable to the Orioles', bonus potential included.

Giving Tejada upwards of $7m is obviously $2.5m-ish over what the Astros got Pedro Feliz for. Would $2.5m have made a difference to the Astros' payroll? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But the fact is that Tejada and Valverde may have seriously misread the market, and only screwed themselves.

Tejada never sold his house in Baltimore

MASN Sports had a further note on Tejada's Baltimore affection (see this for Exhibit B):

Tejada still has a home in the Baltimore area. He supposedly told his agent not to sell it, "just in case."

You never know.

Tejada was two-timing us!

In Jorge Arangure's twitter feed, he has some soundbites from Tejada's press conference in Baltimore. A summation, if you'll allow:

"This is the second chance to be a winner [in Baltimore]. I love being here in Baltimore. I hope this time we can do what we didn't do last time. When I left, i understood it was a business. I came back because it's a business. When I left i always felt i could come back. After I left I still watched their games. In Houston we started an hour later. I always watched the Orioles games and talked to Brian. I told Brian i really missed being here."

At least it's not the Cardinals

The Baltimore Sun's Peter Schmuck is reporting Miguel Tejada has signed with the Orioles, where he'll move to third base, shifting Garrett Atkins to first base.

I don't think the Astros weren't ever not interested in Tejada, but they were not interested in his price tag. It'll be interesting to see what he signed for.

UPDATE: SI's Jon Heyman says it's a one-year $6m deal with performance bonuses. This is approximately $1.5m more than what Ed Wade just gave to Pedro Feliz, but I don't care. I'm kind of glad Tejada is officially gone as the idea of bringing him back, just to screw over Tommy Manzella, had never left the back of my mind. Feliz is a true third baseman, and while it blocks Chris Johnson for another year, it opens up SS1 for Manzella.

Now just to get Matsui off the books...

Richard Justice, Captain of the Obvious

In a blog post, Richard Justice says "The Astros are right to pass on Tejada."

The Astros might have had some interest at the beginning of free agency, but apparently Miggy wanted more money than the Astros were willing to spend. Now Ed Wade has pushed the payroll about as far as Drayton McLane is willing to go. He talked him into Brett Myers, and that probably did it as far as this off-season's significant spending.

The Astros finished last season needing home runs and pitching. Tejada provides neither...

...It would be one thing if the Astros were applying patches with the hope of winning a championship. They're trying to be respectable. Even as they try to remain respectable this year, it'll be interesting to see how their young players progress. Miguel Tejada would only get in the way of that progression.

Tejada a target for three teams

Jon Paul Morosi of Fox Sports has an update on the Tejada sweepstakes (I know. He's not an Astro. And won't be an Astro. But since the Astros haven't felt like trying to settle any of their arbitration cases, what else are we going to talk about - at least until I get off my duff and work on those minor-leaguer recaps):

The Giants haven’t confirmed that they remain in the running for Tejada, but he’s a natural fit for a team that needs to score more runs. Tejada has indicated a willingness to play somewhere other than shortstop, sources have said, raising the possibility that he could play third base for the Giants, Twins or Cardinals.

Also on the list are the aforementioned Twins, and the A's.

Mr. Tejada goes to Haiti

Good for him.

Tejada arranged for a van full of food, water and medicine to be brought to Port au Prince on Sunday, and the Dominican Republic native took a helicopter to the Haitian capital.

GMs still don't get it about Tejada, and the GIDPs

The Boston Globe's Nick Cafardo's new column is up, and in his closing randomness has a note about Tejada's continued unemployment:

Someone is going to get a .300 hitter who can drive the ball into the gaps, play every day, and be a good clubhouse presence. And they’re going to get him for a year or two at little money. One NL general manager who considered Tejada said, "He’s been in the right ballpark [Houston] to hit the doubles, but he’s also a double-play machine. Not sure, also, whether the conversion to third base will be as seamless as people think. Having said that, someone is going to get a pretty good player."

What's wrong with you people! Haven't you read this post?!

Tejada to Oakland?

In ESPN's Rumor Central, we read:

Tejada could fill openings at third base for Toronto, Oakland or St. Louis, and if clubs think he can play some second base, another handful of clubs could show interest...

...Jon Heyman of MLB Network said Friday night that the A's are looking for an infielder and could try to bring Tejada back to Oakland and losing out on Marco Scutaro and Adrian Beltre.

Ah, but the SF Chronicle's Susan Slusser notes:
As I mentioned, there's only a vague possibility anyway that the A's would consider Tejada the answer to their needs for a third baseman who also could play shortstop; first of all, he'd have to come at a reasonable price, and second, while there's an assumption most shortstops can play third, Tejada has never done so. And his defense has declined over the years.

Tejada finding that teams aren't so jazzed about paying 35-year old shortstops $8 million

Jorge Arangure Jr's new blog post discusses the plight of Miguel Tejada.

During the World Baseball Classic this year, then Houston Astros shortstop Miguel Tejada told reporters that he was willing to play any infield position in 2010 -- including third base -- which was a surprising turn for a player who had so steadfastly clung to his beloved shortstop position.

At the all star game, Tejada, a free agent to be, reiterated that sentiment during media sessions at the All Star game. Now in the offseason, the usually reclusive Tejada, made that same declaration once again to a Spanish-speaking reporter from the Associated Press, which may signal that Tejada still hasn't found the free agent marketplace to his liking.

He'll move to 3B, but as Arangure notes, he hasn't really played it. And when the Dominican Republic got bounced out of the 1st round of the WBC last Spring, Tejada was their 3B for all of eight minutes. Now teams aren't so sure about giving $8 million (the money Tejada is rumored to be seeking) to a 3B who hasn't ever really played 3B.

So THAT'S why Tejada is still unemployed

Grinnin' Ken Rosenthal is saying that Miggs is looking for a 2-year $16 million deal. Hm.

Tejada #2 on Heyman's best remaining free agents list; Valverde #5

Jon Heyman's new column has to do with the remaining free agents, now that Bay and Holliday have signed. Johnny Damon is #1, but here comes Miggs next...

Even after a terrific offensive season, his market appears surprisingly thin. The Giants and Phillies signed their third basemen, leaving the Cardinals as the most logical landing spot. St. Louis is believed to want to keep it to a one-year deal, perhaps for $8 million, but eventually the sides should be able to work it out. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggested the Holliday might diminish the Cardinals' chances for Tejada. But this is probably his best option. Tejada is a solid choice to play third base and replace Mark DeRosa, who went to the Giants without a fight. If Tejada can't work it out with the Cardinals, he might have to turn to one of the two Texas teams, the Rangers or Astros.

With Feliz in the fold, I don't see a return to Houston as an option for Miggs.

And on Valverde:
The terrific closer apparently didn't want to accept arbitration with the Astros, and now may wind up regretting that call. He probably could have earned at least $10 million via arbitration, but it appears now that the teams looking for closers aren't going to be willing to go there. The Tigers and his former Diamondbacks team look like they may be looking for a fire sale on one of the game's more productive relievers.

We should hope it's the Tigers who come calling, as that will result in an extra first-round pick for the Astros. The Diamondbacks 1st-Rounder is protected, which would give us their 2nd-round pick.

Cardinals still interested in Tejada

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Derrick Goold addresses the "What Now?" for the Cardinals, now that they've spent $17 million a year until 2017. Seeing as how they still need an SP5, 3B, and another reliever.

The club has been intrigued with free-agent infielder Miguel Tejada, a former MVP and a shortstop who had 199 hits last season for the Houston Astros. The Cardinals' interest is predicated on Tejada's willingness to move to third base and the possibility of fitting him in on a short-term deal. Members of the Cardinals' leadership have eyed Tejada as a trade target in recent seasons, and manager Tony La Russa recently stated publicly that the club has "talked about Miguel."

Olney's note on Valverde and Tejada

In Buster Olney's new blog post, BO highlights the surprising number of available free agents still available. One of those free agents is Jose Valverde, whose agent didn't really do him a solid:

(Valverde) had a strong season as the Astros' closer, posting a 2.33 ERA with just 40 hits and five homers allowed in 54 innings. But there are very few closer positions open now -- in Detroit, Florida and perhaps Washington, all teams that are not necessarily inclined to spend big dollars on a closer -- and there may be no opportunities for him to make in salary what he might've made had he accepted arbitration from Houston last week.

Mmm. And the question is, which team is willing to pay him AND give up the draft pick. Valverde's agent definitely nutted this one...

Another of those free agents is Miguel Tejada:
He hit .313 with 61 extra-base hits while playing in Houston last season (and yes, his home-road splits are acute, and he has indicated a willingness to play some other position besides shortstop. Scouts love his energy, but he made almost $15 million in salary last year and, like Bobby Abreu, he might be facing a major adjustment in salary.

Any thoughts on the market for Tejada?