Ruben Amaro – The Good Years (Part 2)

Ruben Amaro – The Good Years (Part 2)

Part Two of a Multi-Part Look at Ruben’s Career as Phillies General Manager.  In this part, we cover an okay year in 2010 and what should have been in 2011.  We will further continue our investigation thereafter by looking at the abysmal years of 2012 and 2013.

Part One of a Look at Ruben’s General Manager Career with the Phillies can be found here:  http://philliesfaithful.com/ruben-amaro-the-good-years-part-1/

The Neutral Year – 2010 ($575K ROI and 5 WAR)

In 2010, Ruben needed to make more of an impact on the roster, as falling short in 2009 left the fans desiring more, and it was his first real chance to structure the roster the way that he saw fit.  However, he tried to focus on making some cost effective moves, signing Brian Schneider and Danys Baez to reasonable contracts, bringing back defensive and contact specialist Placido Polanco, and making the move that defined his existence, trading for the great Roy Halladay but for some inexplicable reason trading away Cliff Lee for sixty cents on the dollar to save money.  During the season he made another aggressive deadline deal acquiring Roy Oswalt to fill out the rotation and making an extremely questionable early contract extension to Ryan Howard.

Here is a look at the cumulative transactions that impacted the season and their residual values:

Free Agency

We will quickly look at the free agent pick-ups made in this off-season, as they are not the major impact decisions that Ruben made that year.  Brian Schneider was a career replacement player on the decline, there was a good chance signing him to any contract would not be profitable for the organization.  His only value was that he could put on catching gear.  Placido Polanco was a good signing as he fit two major needs, contact and defense at third base.  There were legitimate concerns over his health and longevity, which is why the only year that his deal was not profitable was his injury plagued final year.  He was worth 6.7 WAR over three years and a surplus value of $10M, despite his poor third year.  Danys Baez’s only positive value came the day Ruben decided to cut ties with him.  He was never good and should have never been signed.  He never had a season where he exceeded 1 WAR and, on average, cost his previous teams $2M a season.  He was worth -.8 WAR and cost the organization $9M in less than two years.

Trades

Ruben was very active on the trade market in 2010, both prior to the season, and at the deadline, acquiring two elite starters and dealing one.  We will discuss the lost pitcher in the Opportunity Cost section, and will focus on the additions made that year in this one.

The first major move Ruben made via trade was picking up the best Right-Handed Pitcher in the game at the time, Roy Halladay, for a few elite prospects.  He then signed Halladay to a fairly reasonable contract extension with little risk and an average salary that was possibly below market value for a pitcher of Halladay’s caliber.  Unfortunately, that move has not worked out exceedingly well for the Phillies.  I will never question Ruben’s decision to acquire Halladay, so I will only present the facts and no opinion on this one.  Halladay’s first two seasons were on the elite level you would expect, pitching to seasons of 6.1 WAR and 8 WAR, including a perfect game and a postseason no-hitter.  He was worth a cumulative surplus value of $25M in those first two years.  Unfortunately, the unexpected happened, a figment of health, dedication, and regiment throughout his career, Roy suddenly started having health issues and lost major velocity.  He no longer looks like the Cy Young pitcher he was and the results followed that way.  In 2012, he was worth 2.5 WAR and roughly -.7 WAR so far this year, a hefty loss for a $20M a year player.  Over the last two seasons, he is on pace to cost the organization roughly $31M.  While D’Arnaud has a chance to be an elite catcher, the performance to date of the prospects given up in the trade has been well below average.  Due in large part to Michael Taylor’s struggles, the Phillies have saved $7.75M by giving up those prospects in actual performance (projection excluded).  Thanks to that Opportunity Cost, the Phillies have benefited about $1.6M over four seasons by completing this deal.  Not the result they expected when getting Roy Halladay, by any means.

At the deadline, Ruben made another aggressive deal by acquiring another Roy.  Trading with his former mentor, Ruben acquired Roy Oswalt and cash for proven pitcher JA Happ and top 100 prospects Jonathan Villar and Anthony Gose.  In a short season (and thanks to Houston paying much of Oswalt’s salary), the Phillies saw an immediate return on investment of $9.25M thanks to his 2.7 WAR from acquiring Oswalt.  In 2011, he was worth exactly what we paid him at $11M for 2.5 WAR.  While Villar and Gose have not contributed at the major league level yet, Happ has been worth roughly 3 WAR since his departure and a cumulative opportunity cost loss of $7M.  As a whole, this deal has been roughly 2 WAR and a return on investment of $2.5M, making it a worthwhile deal to date for a competitive team that was making another late push for a World Series.

Opportunity Cost

Opportunity Costs hurt the Phillies in Ruben’s 2010 decisions more so than any other season, and that is not even including the potential careers of Travis D’Arnaud, Jonathan Villar, Anthony Gose, or any of the other top 100 prospects dealt that year.  The largest opportunity cost loss was the trade that sent Cliff Lee to Seattle for Aumont, Gillies, and Ramirez, none of whom have provided any value to the organization yet.  In 2010, a year where the Phillies later traded better prospects for a worse pitcher, the Phillies could have really used Cliff Lee.  Lee was worth roughly $19M more than his $9M Salary, which was apparently too much for the team at that time, and provided 7 WAR, an elite level, for the Mariners and Rangers combined.  The prospects we received in return have been worth a combined -.1 WAR and cumulative cost of roughly $2.7M.

That year, Ruben Amaro actually made an impressive decision, signing a reclamation project in Ryan Vogelsong to a minor league deal.  While he did struggle for the AAA Phillies, his 4.24 FIP showed some upside, especially for a pitcher who had not pitched in four years.  Ruben later made a really bad decision to release Vogelsong, who caught on with the San Francisco Giants the following season, where he went 13-7 with a 2.71 ERA in 2011 and 14-9 with a 3.37 ERA in 2012, providing the Giants with 4.2 Cumulative WAR and a surplus value of $18.5M.  He has had a down year so far this year, costing the Giants an estimated $2.9M, but will ultimately be a great investment for them.  He went on to win a World Series… Ruben Amaro has not.

The Extension

Ruben has not been shy about signing his core to contract extensions, even when they are years away from free agency and completely under team control.  These have generally been neutral moves, as he tends to not sign them for a hometown discount, but instead at their fair value, with one major exception…  Ryan Howard.  At the time of the contract, Howard was coming off of 5 straight years of 2+ WAR seasons, was producing offensively to his career averages, but mired in the worst defensive year of his career.  A bad defensive year that was noticeable at a position where you can be bad and no one would know.  Excluding that year, Ryan averaged roughly 3.5 WAR per year over the previous 5 years, not elite by any means, and a value of roughly $16M a year.  Ryan was also a player that many believed would not age well and would be significantly impacted by a decrease in bad speed.  He was two years away from free agency, which provided the Phillies plenty of time to decide on how he would age prior to committing to a long-term deal.

Instead of taking on no risk by waiting to see, they decided to lock him up early to the richest contract in franchise history, making him among the highest paid players in all of baseball.  At $25M a year, there was absolutely no chance this contract would be profitable for the Phillies.  Even if he did not decline at all, the Phillies were likely to lose roughly $9M a year on this contract.  While the fringe benefits and good will gained by signing him may have made it worthwhile at that loss, the risk of significant decline should not have.  In the two years of that contract so far, Ryan has been injured and below league average.  He has contributed -.6 WAR and a loss of roughly $42M thus far.  His contract is completely impossible to move and, in all likelihood, will cost the Phillies over $100M more in the last three years of the deal.  Many have argued that this is one of the worst contracts in baseball and one that Ruben should not be allowed to escape.

Summary

Overall, the moves he made in the 2010 season provided a 5.8 WAR in 2010 for an average WAR of 1 per transaction, with the 2009 residual costing the team .8 WAR.  These decisions also resulted in an immediate return on investment of $4.375M in 2010, but the season on the whole was only worth about $75K to the organization based on residual losses from 2009.  Cumulatively, his decisions in 2010 have wound up costing the organization roughly $77M over the life of the transactions.  These decisions have led to a positive WAR of 13.1, but at a significant actual cost in terms of salary relative to the return received.  It cost the Phillies roughly $135M in actual salary to receive roughly $60M in estimated value, including costs and opportunity costs. Unfortunately, with the remaining money owed to Ryan Howard, and his poor future projections, these decisions are likely to far exceed the losses experienced thus far and will only get worse for the Phillies organization.

The Go for Broke Year – 2011 ($11.65M ROI and 16.3 WAR)

By 2011, Ruben had committed to have to push forward and continue to spend house money.  The Phillies had a heartbreaking end of the season at home in the playoffs to the Giants, but felt the sting of regret and hope, all at once.  There was no need to rebuild as the team was so good the previous year and few roster spots to fill as almost the entire roster returned from the previous year.  Not many changes were needed, so few moves were made.  The moves that were made were significant and jeopardized the future of the organization, both financially and in opportunity cost.  After trading Cliff Lee away and not realizing any value in the move, Ruben experienced seller’s remorse and shocked the world when he outbid the Yankees for his services.  He made a few other minor moves prior to the season, but he made his statement that the Phillies were a big time organization to be reckoned with in the future.  As the team cruised through the regular season and the deadline approached, Ruben met the one need of the team, a prominent Right Handed Bat in the form of Hunter Pence, at arguably the steepest price he was yet to pay in a trade.

Here is a look at the cumulative transactions that impacted the season and their residual values:

The Minor Moves

In what seems to have been somewhat foreshadowing, only two moves outside of the major acquisitions had any impact on the organization, and they were at a significant loss.  While these decisions were at little cost in terms of salary to the organization, the opportunity cost and the lost value have been significant.  In the Rule V draft, the Phillies claimed utility player Michael Martinez from the Washington Nationals.  Michael has earned the league minimum in his three seasons with the Phillies, but has been worth about -.5 WAR per year, begging the question, why is he still here?  For such a low impact move, he has cost the organization $8M in three years and is indicative of the low-risk, low-reward, significant-loss moves that Ruben has made over the last few years.

As we search for a complete Outfield, a former intuitive signing by Ruben Amaro, but less intuitive release, continues to mash homeruns for the Oakland Athletics.  While far from an elite talent, Moss was hitting .275/.368/.509/.877 with 23 HRs for the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs in 2011 before moving onto the A's.  In 2012, he hit .291/.358/.596/.954 with 21 HRs (36 including AAA) providing 2.3 WAR and surplus value of almost $10M to the A's.  So far in 2013, he is hitting .250/.329/.495/.824 with 25 HRs and on pace for a 1.6 WAR season and surplus value of $7M.  Not elite numbers, but certainly another opportunity cost lost by Ruben.

That same year, he made another wise decision in signing reclamation project Jason Grilli, a power reliever who, despite posting a 1.93 ERA, 12 K/9, and only 3 BB/9 with the Phillies AAA Affiliate, was released to pursue other opportunities because the Phillies could not free up a roster spot for him.  I should re-iterate that Danys Baez was still in the bullpen at this point in time.  Jason Grilli has gone on to be an All-Star closer for the Pirates, accumulating 3.1 WAR in 3 years and a surplus value of $14M.  Over that time, the Phillies have yet to find a single consistent contributor to their bullpen.

Bringing Back Cliff

It is difficult to truly evaluate the return on investment on an Ace.  You have to pay them a premium, in all likelihood above their WAR value, but that may be a flaw in the way this system works.  You tend to experience diminishing returns at that elite level, whereas each additional WAR at that level should likely be valued higher than an average figure.  To have one individual player contribute that level of performance and impact takes a ton of pressure off the rest of the team and also improves the overall results of the organization.  I digress though, as this topic alone could be a thesis, so let’s focus on Cliff Lee.  There really is not much to say other than the fact that Cliff is really good, but this deal does present a ton of risk due to the term and back-loaded nature.  To date, it has worked out, as Cliff has been worth roughly 16 WAR in the first three years and a surplus value of $16M.  The loss in 2013 is based solely on the fact that we are paying him so much money.  He has been worth every penny thus far and a re-evaluation of “Aces” may change even that figure to make him look even better.

The Death of the Deadline Deal

As the 2011 deadline approached, the Phillies were looking like the favorites in the NL to go to the World Series and were running away with the NL East.  You cannot fault Ruben’s commitment to winning at this point, nor can you question the intent in acquiring Hunter Pence.  At the time, he looked like the final piece to a World Series win.  The Phillies put together an elite package of Top-50 prospects in Jarrod Cosart and Jonathan Singleton along with high-upside prospect Domingo Santana and complementary piece Josh Zeid to acquire Pence.  The results were immediately beneficial to the organization as Pence contributed an additional 2.5 WAR in 2011 and a surplus value of $11M in a short time span.  In 2012, Pence was not quite the same player, and only accumulated 1 WAR before being traded and a loss of $1.7M for the year.  In his time with the Astros this year, Cosart has looked like an elite pitcher, contributing about 1 WAR and a value of over $3M to the organization, contributing to an opportunity cost lost for the Phillies in that trade.  To date, the overall deal was worthwhile to the organization, providing a $5.4M return on investment.  Pence’s disappointing 2012 season and subsequent poor return on his departure are the real negatives of his time in Philadelphia, but those will be discussed in more detail in the bad years.

Summary

Ruben had few moves to make prior to this season, but made a couple really good ones.  His decisions in 2011 added over 8 WAR on a few transactions and over $25M in return on investment for the team that year, but the opportunity cost lost in releasing Grilli and continuing to use Michael Martinez have turned the transactions to neutral overall.  The decisions still net out to a positive 14 WAR across the three seasons and, focusing on only the major acquisitions, Ruben truly improved the organization this year.  Despite significant residual loss of $21M from his first-year decisions, heavily weighted on the below replacement level performance of Raul Ibanez, Ruben contributed positive benefits to the organization.  He went all-in to try to win in 2011 and should have reaped the benefits.  What looked like a surefire World Series team ruptured like Ryan Howard’s Achilles Tendon to end not only the Phillies playoff hopes and season, but also any signs of positive impact from Ruben Amaro’s decisions.

Stay Tuned for Ruben Amaro: The Bad Years, part two of three of a look at Ruben Amaro’s career as Phillies’ General Manager…