Jaime Garcia & Trevor Cahill Move to the AL

We still have about a week to go before the non-waiver trade deadline, but already deals are being made. Yesterday, both Jaime Garcia and Trevor Cahill were shipped off of their non-contending teams to the American League. Let’s see how the league, park, and team switches could affect their values.

Park Factors were retrieved from StatCorner and I combined the righty/lefty factors using a 60%/40% split.

Jaime Garcia – ATL to MIN
R K BB 1B HR
SunTrust Park 99 97 100 102 98
Target Field 104 94 92 104 102

I highlighted in yellow the park that was more beneficial for Garcia in that metric. Unfortunately for Garcia owners, the park switch appears to be a clear negative. This year, the Braves new ballpark has suppressed run scoring, reduced strikeouts less significantly than Target Field, increased singles less than Target Field, and suppressed homers. The only positive change is the friendlier walk rate.

Of course, this move puts another dent in Garcia’s value with the league switch as he will no longer have the luxury of facing the pitcher, meaning all else being equal, his strikeout rate is going to decline. That’s an ominous thought considering Garcia’s is already sitting at a career low, though he hasn’t lost his ability to induce swings and misses.

Perhaps most important for Garcia is his new team’s infield defense. He owns the seventh highest ground ball rate among qualified starters, so he requires strong defenders on the infield to gobble up all those balls in play. Overall, the Twins have trotted out a stronger defensive unit than the Braves. In the infield, each position is nearing a neutral UZR/150, with one exception — third base. After the Braves acquired Matt Adams to replace the injured Freddie Freeman, he caught fire and it was impossible to remove him from the lineup upon Freeman’s return. So now Freeman is attempting to work as the every day third baseman, but UZR/150 suggests that he has been a disaster as the hot corner. If you’re curious, 84.1 innings in and Freeman has racked up an astounding -89.3 UZR/150! It would have been difficult to find a defense that wouldn’t represent on upgrade on the infield when Freeman is the third baseman. So that’s a plus for Garcia.

From an offensive support standpoint, there shouldn’t be a whole lot of difference as both teams ranked in or near the bottom third in their respective leagues in offense. Overall, the park and league switches are too much for the improved defense to overcome, so Garcia’s value definitely takes a hit. It’s not like he held much value to begin with, but even in AL-Only leagues, I would be hesitant to place an aggressive bid here.

Trevor Cahill – SD to KC
R K BB 1B HR
Petco Park 93 101 100 99 94
Kauffman Stadium 105 93 99 99 74

I love pitchers in Kansas City. Elite defense combined with a pitcher friendly home park is a great pair. However, I’m rather shocked to see the difference in the runs factor. Heck, it’s not even the difference that surprises me, it’s that Kauffman Stadium has actually inflated run scoring this year?! Who knew?

Petco Park has also marginally increased strikeouts, while Kauffman has reduced them significantly, which is a negative for Cahill. The big difference comes from the home run park factor, as we all know that Kauffman is one of the league’s most difficult places to hit a long ball. But here’s the thing — Cahill induces tons of grounders like Garcia, so he’s not going to benefit all that much from a park that holds in fly balls better. Only 26% of his balls in play have been flies to begin with! An extreme fly baller would enjoy greater benefits from the park.

Liek Garcia, Cahill also relies on a strong infield defense. We know the Royals always have an elite outfield unit, but how has their infield performed, especially compared to the Padres? Overall, the Royals have posted the fourth highest UZR/150 in baseball, versus the third lowest for the Padres. That’s quite the swing! The Padres infield has been a revolving door, but the Royals have been just a mediocre group, with Alcides Escobar the only man who has posted a meaningfully positive UZR/150. Still, it probably represents a slight upgrade, and when including the outfielders, it’s clear this is a sizable win.

We have the usual NL to AL caveats on strikeout rate, but so far the defensive support clearly helps Cahill, while the park is a question mark. Luckily, he should receive ever so slightly better offensive support as he leaves the lowest scoring team in baseball. I say ever so slightly because the Royals aren’t much of an offensive juggernaut themselves.

Overall, this is a bit of a tougher call to make than Garcia. Cahill’s strikeout rate is at an all-time high thanks to a career low rate of fastballs thrown and three secondary offerings with exceptional SwStk% marks. That’s likely to come down in the American League, but with strong defense and a home park that could reduce his mid-teen HR/FB rate, the move here appears neutral to slightly positive.





Mike Podhorzer is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year. He produces player projections using his own forecasting system and is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. His projections helped him win the inaugural 2013 Tout Wars mixed draft league. Follow Mike on Twitter @MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.

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albertklymember
6 years ago

Jon Heyman on Twitter just now: “even after acquiring cahill, royals are looking around for another starter. cahill’s been effective as swing man in past, could go to pen.”

Jonathan Sher
6 years ago
Reply to  Mike Podhorzer

It’s more complex than that. It’s true the Royals are 13th in runs scored for the season, but in the past 30 days, they are second, trailing only the Astros, and in June, they were 7th and just two runs behind the 5th-place team. The reason KC is just 13th in runs scored is because their offense was unworldly bad in April, when four teams nearly doubled their run output and even the next-worst offense still produced 41% more runs.

If you dig deeper into the individual stats of the Royals in April, you see some regulars simply had horrid performance compared to career stats and projections based on the most recent seasons and that considerable positive regression towards norms was likely:
– Hosmer had a 52 wRC+ (career 109)
– Escobar had a 4 wRC+ (career 70)
– Moss had a 59 wRC+ (career 108)
– Gordon had a 33 wRC+ (career 106)

In addition, the Royals made significant changes to their lineup:
– Raul Mondesi was starting in April with a -14 wRC+; he’s been replace by Whit Merrifield who has a 112 wRC+ and appears to be close to a league-average hitter, a massive improvement over Mondesi.
– Paulo Orlando was getting two-thirds of starts in RF in April with a -18 wRC+; he’s been replaced with Jorge Bonifacio, who has a wRC+ of 109 and appears to be a somewhat above average hitter, a big improvement over Orlando.

As well, no one in KC was hitting better than career norms in April – Moose, Perez and Cain were having typical seasons.

In a nutshell, there is overwhelming evidence that the Royals lineup will produce far more offense than it did in April, with six of nine lineup slots greatly improved either because of either regression towards career norms or the replacement of players who were anemic by those whose track record suggest that will produce close to or somewhat better than league average. It seems to me that you formed an impression in April based on short-sample sizes and have continued to hold that view despite a lot of contrary evidence.

What the Royals need is better pitching. Hammell and Kennedy have ERAs north of 4.50 and have fared even worse using more advanced pithing metrics. Karns has been lost for the season, as was Strahm before the trade. Junis and Skoglund are middling prospects who were lit up in KC. Danny Duffy has a history of arm issues. Vargas’s advanced pitching metrics are far worse than his ERA, and while some of that is that he is a fly ball pitcher well suited to his home park and defense, some regression should be expected. In short, the Royals’ rotation is a significant weakness, and the best way to address that is by adding a starter or two and beefing up the bullpen, something Dayton Moore achieve at a reasonable price.

For context, I have been quite critical of some of Moore’s moves in the past, but this was a smart trade.