Jon Heyman is providing some suggestions about how the Red Sox can be fixed. One of them is acquiring a starting pitcher and he names Ryan Dempster.
One obvious suggestion could be Ryan Dempster of the Cubs. He has an 0.95 ERA, the lowest ever for a pitcher who has yet to win a game through five starts. He is hurt by being on a low-scoring team. But if he came to Boston, he could thrive.
Dempster's ERA is now 1.02, but it's pretty much the same as 0.95. Dempster also has a 2.13 FIP and 2.78 xFIP. His ERA ranks best in MLB while the FIP is 4th best and he's 7th in xFIP.
He's striking out a career high 26.9% of the batters he faces and walking a career best 7.5%.
He's been a little lucky on balls in play as his BABIP is just .218 and he's allowing fewer than 4% of his fly balls as home runs. Both rates will regress. So will the strikeouts and walks and as a result the ERA, FIP and xFIP too.
ZIPS projects just under 140 more innings from Dempster and a 3.76 FIP. That amounts to close to 3 WAR per 200 innings so over 140 more he'd be worth 2 WAR. He's owed roughly $11 million the rest of the season and his value based on expected WAR is $10 million. So the Cubs would have to kick in a million bucks to get a deal done and wouldn't receive much at all in return.
Then there's the issue of whether or not Dempster would waive his no-trade clause and I'm guessing he would not. His daughter's doctor is in Chicago and there's little chance his family would move with Dempster for a partial season in Boston. I doubt he'd be willing to be away from the family given his daughter's disorder.
It might make some sense for Boston to go after Dempster, but I'm not sure the Red Sox are really worrying too much at this point. They have a good team and while they've suffered a lot of injuries, they're going to be better than they've shown to this point. They probably aren't going to the playoffs either. Ryan Dempster won't change that.
I think a lot of fans are going to be upset when the Cubs don't trade Ryan Dempster this season. For one thing, I don't think he's going to accept a trade and secondly, I don't think the Cubs will want to trade him. I actually think they keep him around and negotiate a 2-year deal after the season. I think Dempster will be in a Cubs uniform next season and probably starting on Opening Day for the third year in a row.
I agree he probably wouldn’t waive the no-trade to go all the way to Boston to be in that situation. I doubt the no-trade is iron-clad in his head, but the Cubs wouldn’t trade him to St. Louis or Milwaukee and I don’t think the Tigers need him. Minnesota and KC also just don’t make sense.
If I were to make a hopeful guess, I’m going to say that the White Sox stay close to contention by July’s deadline and that will be the most favorable trade destination for Demp since he’d only have to drive a few extra miles to work. I just don’t know what’s in the Sox system that would be worthwhile since I thought their farm was ranked dead last.
I guess the way I see it is that if the Cubs hope to contend in the next year or two they’re probably not going to do without Dempster. If they can get Dempster back for 2 years and $20 million I think they’d be pretty happy. Dempster may be pricing himself into a 3/45 deal though and I don’t see the Cubs doing that. The Cubs just don’t have talent in the farm system that’s going to replace him so if they can get Dempster at a discount it’s better than paying market rate for similar talent.
The other thing is that with Dempster’s strong start the Cubs will almost certainly offer arbitration and if he stays, great. If not, the Cubs get draft picks and that’s more than they’ll get in a trade.
I think Boston has legitimate reasons to worry, given the division they play in and the long-term nature of some of the injury issues they’re having. The Sox seem more vulnerable than they did in 2011, and we all now how last year turned out.
mb21 wrote:
How much would he get in arbitration? I’m guessing he’d just settle with a discount contract rather than take the Cubs to the bank.
@ ACT:
I think they have more reason to worry in that I don’t think they make the playoffs this season, but I don’t think Dempster improves their odds a whole lot. PECOTA still gives them a better than 50% chance of reaching the playoffs, but I’m not buying it.
@ Rice Cube:
Probably $15 million, but if you can get Dempster for 1 year and $15 million go for it. If he has a good season this year there’s no reason to think he won’t get a 3-year offer from some other team. My guess is the Cubs offer arbitration, Dempster accepts and they work out a 2-year extension for about $20 million or so.
Doug Davis ———-> Royals
Felix Pie ————–> Braves
@ mb21:
How the mighty have fallen
Hope Monster ——–> committed suicide
Not really, though. He lives for days like the last two, when that hope is deflated by reality.
@ josh:
I would like to see a comic like one of your previous entries where the Hope Monster is just lying in dormancy, waiting for his moment to strike anew.
What if he went to someone like the Yankees for the rest of the season, then came back next year? Would the Yankees trade for him just as a rental? Or would they only trade for him if he agreed to sign a few-year deal? (I’m taking the question of whether he’d actually go to NY out of the equation.)
@ Steve Swisher:
There have been cases of players getting traded, then returning. It’s not all that common, partly because players may perceive the trading team as not wanting them. Partly because the team may not have wanted them. I’d call it unlikely, if only because the team they’re with has first negotiating rights, and if they gave up real prospects for that player, they may want him. If the Yanks, for example, traded for Demp knowing that they only wanted him through the end of the year, they probably wouldn’t be as inclined to give up much in the initial trade.
@ josh:
Given how tight the Ricketts family is with Dempster, I can see them working out some sort of wink-wink deal with him: We’ll trade you to get some decent prospects (maybe), then you come back here next year and we’ll re-sign you. I bet you, whether he stays or goes, he ends up as some sort of Cubs ambassador after he retires. They love that guy.
Bryce Harper is now .213/.309/.340. Hardly surprising, since he was hardly dominating at AA/AAA.
Aroldis had another brilliant outing. 2 IP, 1 H, 4 K.
@ Steve Swisher:
That may well be. My only thought there would be that his agent and family would also have to be on board with any handshake deal. The agent effectively loses money if Dempster signs for less to stay in Chicago. Not that it hasn’t happened in the past, a few times.
@ Steve Swisher:
I feel like whichever team does get Dempster will force some kind of sign-and-trade if the Cubs want something of substance back?
@ Rice Cube:
I don’t think the Cubs get anything of substance back for Ryan Dempster. He’s good, but that’s an expensive rental.
mb21 wrote:
Send a shit ton of money along with him. The Cubs need players much more than money right now
@ Berselius:
I believe one of the deterrents is the fact that if Dempster is simply a rental, other teams won’t be willing to part with good pieces because there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to keep him past that season and they also won’t be able to earn compensation.
Per Robothal, the Cubs and Garza are making good progress on an extension
@ Berselius:
In that case, I’ll look for Garza to be traded within the week.
If the Cubs traded Dempster to someone with an “agreement” that he’d come back, then the acquiring team could also offer him arb and get a pick, adding to his value? I don’t know about all that, but maybe.
@ Recalcitrant Blogger Nate:
The Cubs would also lose that arb pick to whatever team he was traded to in that situation, so there’s no additional value for the Cubs
I didn’t think teams could get arb picks for players unless they were on the team for the entire season now.
@ mb21:
This seems to be one of the major sticking points of the new CBA that prevents teams from stockpiling draft picks, especially since they did away with the Type A/B stuff.
By the way, Happy Mother’s Day to all your moms and the mothers of your collective offspring.
@ ACT:
Shut your mouth
@ Berselius:
But I’m talkin’ about Shaft.
@ ACT:
He’s a complicated man
@ ACT:
We can dig it.
Berselius wrote:
Don’t tell us what to do.
@ Rice Cube:
It will also reduce the number of midseason trades. If the Cubs keep Dempster and offer him arbitration they could get draft picks (assuming he signs elsewhere). If they had traded him with the old CBA the new team could have done the same and would be willing to give up more talent at the deadline. That’s gone. Teams will be giving up less to acquire players so it probably makes much more sense at this point for the Cubs to keep Dempster. You never know what one team may offer so you’d have to consider it, but the Cubs would probably get more by offering arbitration. They’d either get another year of Dempster or draft picks.
Rice Cube wrote:
/bubbles
So I’ve been away this weekend and haven’t read every word. What’s up with LaHair? He is like 1-10 so far this series right? Are they throwing him junk or is he just having a poor series
WaLi22 wrote:
I haven’t seen much, but every player goes through stretches like that.
Wow that Brewers lineup looks almost as bad as the Cubs except Braun is good, Ramirez can still hit some, and Lucroy is a decent hitting catcher. Injuries have really depleted them.
I wonder if Dempster would be interested in pitching for the Blue Jays and trying to help them make the playoffs given that he’s Canadian.
Today’s WGN tutorial is on FIP.
@ Recalcitrant Blogger Nate:
I think 424 is right in that Dempster probably would accept a trade under some circumstances, but I really think the better question is about whether or not the Cubs are better off trading him or keeping him and offering him arbitration. Even if you kick in the entire contract around the deadline you’re still not going to get much for him. Unless I’m wrong about that I think the Cubs are better off offering arbitration. They’re certainly not going to get more value than Dempster provides on the free agent market and they don’t have anyone in the farm system so I also think the Cubs are better off keeping him.
I’m pretty sure Brenly just insulted Aramis Ramirez.
@ Rice Cube:
Yup. Backhanded compliment of his “new” baserunning approach.
Ian Stewart, colloquially speaking, fucked that ball up.
Stewart! That was a fucking bomb
Hope Monster seems to have latched back on to Reed Johnson.
Reedz!
Corey Hart did not surrender on that deep drive.
For those watching, any reason F7 was a bit less economical than he has been of late? 91 pitches through 6 isn’t terrible, but it seems like F7 has been pretty good about limiting his pitches. Or maybe that’s my lying memory.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
Lots of fouls. Only two walks, but the Brewers were unusually patient with him today and just kept fouling stuff off when it got to two strikes.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
No clue. He was throwing a lot more fastballs today. I think the Brewers were just taking more pitches.
@ Rice Cube:
Ah, thanks. I wonder if they saw something in the video.
Over/Under on rusted-out car chassies sitting in Cory Hart’s front lawn?
Cubs’ bullpen =
Castro’s range saved the go-ahead run.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
What’s the average? I feel like he’d want to be slightly classier so less than the average would be my guess.
Who woke up the Filthy Scot?
WAG
All the grinders are getting their hits today. The Hope Monster must be fully tumescent.
Gotta love that Brewers defense. (dying laughing)
Mercurial Outfielder wrote:
All the Cubs have to do is win the 2 game series against the Cards and they go home with a winning road trip. Yes. It’s going to happen.
Just saw Jerry Seinfeld on stage. It did not suck.
Sullivan stirring shit re: Soriano:
What a sad, ignorant and petty man.
Sullivan is a piece of shit.
new shit: http://www.obstructedview.net/commentary-and-analysis/even-bad-teams-get-hot.html