Kim to the pen, Barmes/Sullivan to the farm

[BigRapidsJackass]

The Official Site of The Colorado Rockies: News: Colorado Rockies News

Which means:

Fogg is the 5th starter

Kim is clearly on the trading block (although he belongs in the pen, he hates it). By the way, Kim's splits over the last 3 years: vs RHH = .712; vs LHH = .914 OPS. It was even worse last year: .694/.947. Which ordinarily wouldn't be such a bad thing, since RHH will get the clear majority of plate appearances. But the league is, not surprisingly, onto this, and clubs stack their lineups with LHHs against him. Lefties actually had the majority of PAs against him last year. It all adds up to this: he'd be a great situational reliever in the pen, since he's pretty darn good against righties. BK, get your head together and accept your role in life. You may even get a chance to close again someday (but probably not with those splits). Pretty ordinary middle relievers are making more than you are this year. That could be you.

Tulo is the starting SS, and Finley has made the club. No surprises there.

Corpas and Ramirez apparently make the club, which is good.

Danny Graves: released. It's over for him.

And I guess Mabry and Alexis Gomez are fighting it out for 25th man. This is really no contest, since Gomez is, well, pretty bad (Mabry's no great shakes either, but he's clearly in the driver's seat).

As for the Tom Martin story: what story? Like he was going to start? Clint does imply that Martin is on a pretty short lease, and I guess Gallo has accepted a minor league assignment, so they've got a man in waiting. Herges, too, is apparently accepting a AAA assignment, probably one of those "we'll call you up by May 15 or release you" deals.

[GerryInCS]

If Cook, Francis and Fogg are our 1, 2 and 5 pitcher. Who are our and 3 and 4, Lopez and Lawrence? If so, then my predicition of 69 wins may be a bit on the high side.

[indianadrew]

lopez and hirsch are the 3 and 4 starters.

lawrence is #6 in pitchers chart

[Roxpert]

Kim is poorly suited to be a starting pitcher due to his extreme righty/lefty splits. Until he learns a new pitch to keep lefties off-balance, I think he's a situational righty along the lines of a young Steve Reed. He COULD be a closer again, if his head is right, and I think another team will trade for him with that in mind.

My early guess: Look for us to trade Kim to the Giants where he steps in as closer to replace Benitez. Also Tim Lincecum will set him up by midseason in spectacular fashion.

[bedir than average]

Jeff Weaver's LH/RH splits are as bad if not worse and he pitched in the World Series for the winner.

[Heltonfan]

Kim is poorly suited to be a starting pitcher due to his extreme righty/lefty splits. Until he learns a new pitch to keep lefties off-balance, I think he's a situational righty along the lines of a young Steve Reed.

I might buy this if Kim had actually pitched poorly last year, but his defense-independent stats were no worse than those of Francis or Cook. He just had rotten luck, both situational and BABIP-related. I see absolutely no reason to think that he's not capable of being a quality starting pitcher.

[Dante Bichette]

It seems to me that Kim's move to the pen is just a ploy to keep him on the roster and force a starting pitching needy team to trade for him, rather than the Rockies simply releasing him. This move is more for financial reasons (I know, this goes without saying since we are talking about the rocks) since the Rockies probably want another team to eat some of his salary.

[Heltonfan]

It seems to me that Kim's move to the pen is just a ploy to keep him on the roster and force a starting pitching needy team to trade for him.

Agreed. However, if the move was really being made for financial reasons, you'd think that they'd be getting rid of Fogg ($3.625 million) rather than Kim ($2.5 million). I'd be awfully surprised if Fogg is really worth a million more than Kim, particularly considering their respective upsides...

[BigRapidsJackass]

you'd think that they'd be getting rid of Fogg ($3.625 million) rather than Kim ($2.5 million). I'd be awfully surprised if Fogg is really worth a million more than Kim, particularly considering their respective upsides...

Agreed. I think BK was, and would be, perfectly acceptable as a 4th/5th starter.

But we've got to face facts now. Managers just seem to dislike him. They particularly dislike him as a starter, where his propensity to rack up huge pitch counts and fail to make it beyond the 5th/6th inning drives them nuts. That's why nobody, except perhaps the A's, has expressed any interest in him as a starter. At the risk of sounding like Aspire: Hurdle is in the majority here. At least 28 other managers/GMs have no interest in him as a starter even though he's clearly superior to most of the ostensible 5th starters out there.

Here's what I'm talking about regarding BK:

Chad Bradford, 3 years, $10.5 million guaranteed, 32 years old, held RHH to a .607 OPS last year at Shea in 62 IP

BK, signed for $2.5 million this year, free agent thereafter, 28 years old, held RHH to a .694 OPS at Coors in 155 IP

The only thing preventing BK from getting a 15 million buck contract to be a middle reliever/right handed specialist come Fall 2007 is his stubborn refusal to recognize that that's where the demand is for him. So the Rockies should do the smart thing: hang onto him until some club gets desperate for relief help, send Tom Martin out (or DL him or something, since he's pitching like he's hurt), let BK be the righthanded specialist out of the pen to increase his trade value, and then get something worthwhile in return for him.

[Roxpert]

with Kim. The reason we tend to like him is his propensity to get strikeouts, but Kim is "exhibit A' of why DIPs stats don't really tell us everything.

Over the past three seasons, Kim has allowed a .712 OPS in 619 ABs against righthanded hitters, and a .914 OPS in 621 ABs against lefties. The SLG alone is .401 againts righties and an ugly .509 against lefties. DIPs theory does not account for the exceptions such as Jamey Moyer from the left side, and perhaps Kim from the right side. Tom Tippett made a compelling presentation about this at the Denver SABR convention. Some pitchers do have slight incremental tendencies to prevent (or allow) hits on balls in play, and Kim may be one of them.

Clearly, at least, Kim has not learned to contain lefties the way he has with righties, and managers have noticed. He has major problems against teams with lots of switch and lefthanded hitters.

[Heltonfan]

2006 was the first year of Kim's career that he had a BABIP higher than his team's; you can't put a guy forth as a massive DIPS exception based on one year of data.

My projections are based on 50% FIP, 50% ERC... in other words, I effectively regress BABIP 50% toward the mean. Which means that I'm not assuming that DIPS stats tell the whole story, or anything close to it. And I still have Kim projected at a 4.35 ERC, making him a perfectly good fourth starter (even considering that he's not much of an innings-eater). Put another way: even if we don't regress the BABIP at all, Kim projects better than Fogg. And the platoon splits are irrelevant; Kim's overall numbers are what they are.

EDIT: I should also add that my projection for Kim is more pessimistic than ZiPS, PECOTA, or the new THT system. It's simply not possible to construct a reasonable statistical argument saying that he doesn't have some real value as a starting pitcher.

[HoyaRoxFan]

Has there been any real substantive comment yet from Kim or his agent about the move? Seems to me this may go a long way in relieving some fears about the bullpen this spring...

[Heltonfan]

Kim says move to bullpen is 'not fair'

Byung-Hyun Kim said Saturday "it's not right" that the Rockies asked him to try new pitches while judging him for a starting-rotation slot this spring. The Rockies said the adjustments were sound, and now the right-hander must function in the bullpen and not let his disappointment become a distraction...

"It seems to me this spring is a little bit weird," Kim said. "They say, 'Try this.' 'Try changeup, inside two-seamers.' Then, 'You're OK. If you give up hits, home runs, they don't count.' Then now ...
"It's not right, I think. If they say, 'Competition, do this,' I don't do any 'try.' It's not right. Hopefully, I've talked to my agent, and I'll see. They're trying to [trade Kim] and they're going to find something. I don't know. Hopefully."

Quick reactions to this:
1) Yes, BK comes across as whiny and mentally fragile.
2) That being said, he's right. It's not fair. He's probably our third-best starter. And we have nothing to lose by giving him a rotation spot.
3) I'll be shocked if he doesn't get traded soon.

[Roxpert]

My goodness, it doesn't sound like Hurdle and Apodaca treated Kim honestly at all, reading Kim's side of the story. You don't tell a starter auditioninig for a spot in the rotation to experiment with new pitches, and not to worry about results, if those results could cause him to lose a spot in the rotation. I can see where Kim is coming from.

On the other hand, something easily could have been lost in translation. What isn't lost is Kim sounding unhappy. Kim will clearly be gone before long.

[BigRapidsJackass]

I think BK is, indeed, our 3rd best starter ... mostly because I'm really skeptical about Rodrigo Lopez and Jason Hirsh, and because we all know what Josh Fogg is (and isn't) capable of.

HF, on a theoretical level, let me pose this question.

I recall seeing some analysis on this issue:

Give 2 statistically equivalent starters, is it better to have the "stable" guy (who tends to give you 6 innings, between 2-4 runs surrendered the majority of the time), or is it better to have the "erratic" guy who more frequently doesn't make it out of the 4th inning but who also more frequently gives you 6-8 shutout innings?

I don't know if it's true, but the perception is Fogg is Mr. Stability, and BK is Mr. Erratic.

Perception of how Fogg compiles a 4.50 ERA (I know, ERA is a bad measure here, but I'll use it for convenience):

Start 1: 6 IP, 3 ER
Start 2: 7 IP, 4 ER
Start 3 6 IP, 3 ER
Start 4 6 IP, 4 ER
Start 5 7 IP, 2 ER

Total 32 IP, 16 ER, 4 mediocre "gives the club a chance to win" starts, and one very good start.

Perception of how BK does it:

Start 1: 3 IP, 5 ER
Start 2: 7 IP, 1 ER
Start 3: 4 IP, 5 ER
Start 4 6 IP, 0 ER
Start 5 6 IP, 2 ER

Total: 26 IP, 13 ER, 2 excellent starts, one very good start, and two very poor starts.

So Fogg gives you an average of about 1 more IP per start, and the variance in his performances is considerably smaller, but other than that they are equivalent (they're not in real life, but this is the example I'm using).

And without looking at systemic effects (say, on bullpen usage), my understanding is that studies (kind of Monte Carlo simulations of full seasons) show that Mr. Erratic is, in general, somewhat more valuable in terms of leading to more wins per 32 starts.

Am I fantasizing about having read this, or is it true? If so, is preferring Fogg over Kim a symptom of managers/GMs who haven't really thought this through properly? In other words, the perceived value of Fogg comes from the "he gives the club a chance to win" by typically hang in there for 6 innings without giving up more than 3-4 runs. Is the whole "he gives the club a chance to win" a fallacy?

And it's outside the model here, but perhaps the whole basis for the pro-Fogg-type bias is that managers generally overstate the systemic impact on their bullpens of carrying one BK-type starter in a 5-man rotation? (I suspect this is the real reason.)